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SIXTY YEARS IN CONCORD 

AND ELSEWHERE. 



PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS 



HENKY McFAELAND. 



1 S3 1-1891, 



PRIVATELY PRINTED. 



CONCORD, X. H. 

1899. 



^ 



XWO COPIES jRECElVEn, 

tliirtpy of congi*ot% 
Office 9f the 

FEB 2 3 1900 

Kegttttr of Copyrl^ht^ 



54398 



THE RUMFORD PRESS, 
CONCORD, N. H. 






SciC JUD GOk^V, 






Copj-right, 1899, by Henry McFarland. 



TO MY WIFE, 

M4RY FRANCES CARTER, 

THIS NAHRATIVE IS AFFECTIONATEI-Y 
INSCKIBED. 



SIXTY YEARS IN CONCORD AND 
ELSEWHERE. 



I. 

Concord, New Hampshire, is a town to 
which almost everybody, sooner or Liter, 
comes. Here have been the Marquis de 
Lafa3^ette, Count Rumford, Daniel Webster, 
James Monroe, S. F. B. Morse, John Tyler, 
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Ralph Waldo Emer- 
son, Nathaniel Parker Willis, John Pierpont, 
Andrew Jackson, James K. Polk, Winfield 
Scott, Rufus Choate, Abraham Lincoln, Sal- 
mon P. Chase, Henry Ward Beecher, John 
G. Whittier, Sam Houston, Horace Greelej^ 
Adelina Patti, Anna Bishop, William War- 
ren, Adelaide Phillips, Teresa Parodi, Edwin 
Bootli, Joseph Jefferson, Levi P. Morton, 
Capt. James West, of the once famous Col- 
lins steamship " Atlantic," Robert Bochsa, 
first harp-player at private concerts of the 
Emperor Napoleon, Ulysses S. Grant, Will- 
iam T. Sherman, Philip H. Sheridan, Ed- 
ward Everett, Jefferson Davis, Theodore L. 



6 Sixty Years in Concord. 

Cuyler, Rutherford B. Hayes, Bayard Taylor, 
Benjamin Harrison, Madame Salm-Salm, and 
others famous in various ways, of whom 
those above named are conspicuous examples. 
I have thought that a man might take a 
stand on Main street, and by patient waiting 
be sure to see pass by any noted person whom 
he sought. 

Sucli a broad, hospital)le town as this is a 
good one in which to be born, — broad in ter- 
ritory, broad enough in opportunities. I in- 
tend to relate my experience and reminis- 
cences of the place, and the narrative may in- 
clude other topics not too remote from the 
main purpose. There will be family and 
personal biography, too much perliaps, and 
any reader with a critical turn of mind may 
as well pause here at the threshold and turn 
his steps away. 

My parents, Asa McFarland and Clarissa 
Jane Cliase, were married at Meredith Bridge, 
now Laconia, by Rev. Daniel Lancaster, pas- 
tor of the Congregational church in Gilman- 
ton. After the wedding, they drove in a 
chaise to their home in Concord, being es- 
corted a part of the way by young friends 
driving in similar carriages, — the chaise being 
tlie fashionable vehicle of that day. I am 
the eldest child of those parents, — born July 



Personal ReeoUeetions. 1 

10, 1831 ; and perhaps a less sturdy infant 
never surprised its nurses by living. 

My father was the eldest son of Rev. Asa 
McFarland, third pastor of the First Congre- 
gational church in Concord, who served the 
parish, or rather the town, that being the 
day of the '' established church," with ability 
and irreproachable industry from 1798 to 
1821. The text of my grandfather's first 
sermon after his ordination was from Job 
xxxiii : 6, and the sermon was preached on 
March 11, 1798. In it is found the follow- 
ing sentence: ''I do not promise myself a 
great share of repose in the business which 
I have undertaken." The church records 
bear the names of four hundred and twenty- 
eight persons added during this ministry. 

My mother was the youngest of five daugh- 
ters of James Chase, of Gilford, the bounda- 
ries of which town included a part of what 
was the village of Meredith Bridge. 

My father's mother, Elizabetli Kneeland, a 
third wife, was born in Boston, March 19, 
1780 ; she was the only daughter of Barthol- 
omew and Susanna Sewall Kneeland. Her 
mother was of the Sewalls of York, Maine, 
a family which has a record in the annals of 
jurisprudence. Her father was a merchant 
of Boston, who resided at tlie time of lier 



8 Sixty Years in Co7icord. 

birth at or near the northerly corner of 
Washington and School sti'eets. As the wife 
of a countiy clergyman, her life abounded in 
good works and alms-deeds, as her memoir 
by Rev. Nathaniel Bouton (1839) relates, 
and she died, as did her husband, at the age 
of fifty-eight years, — he on Feb. 18, 1827, and 
she on Nov. 9, 1838. 

There is in existence an inventory of the 
estate left by ny reverend grandfather, which 
fixes its valuation at $15,239.13. There was 
considerable real estate, — town lands, and a 
farm on the river road to Penacook. He was 
the son of a farmer, and was alwa3's inter- 
ested in agriculture. As miicli as the above 
mentioned valuation may have come to him 
as his wife's inheritance from her father's 
estate. Their private income must have 
been their chief pecuniary resource ; for his 
annual salary was but $350, and to the pay- 
ment of this, meagre as it now seems, there 
were at the outset of his ministry twenty-two 
dissentei'S, probably heads of families, who 
were appalled by the munificence of the 
''living." He had, however, tlie use of cer- 
tain parsonage lands, and in 1820 his minis- 
terial income was increased by an agreement 
made by earnest parish friends to pay an- 
nually the sum of |!l54.43 in addition to the 



Personal Recollections. 9 

regular salaiy. A copy of this agreement is 
ill existence, and it is an interesting paper. 
On it are one hundred and eighteen names. 
The hirgest single subscription is that of 
Thomas W. Thompson, ten dollars ; and the 
smallest ones are fifty cents each. There 
are pledges of curious amounts, such as f 1.13 
and f 1.15, — a fact which might be taken to 
indicate care and exactness, or the impor- 
tance of small sums of money in those days ; 
but the most probable explanation is, that 
these subscriptions had some relation in the 
giver's mind to the personal tax which he had 
theretofore paid for the support of public 
worship. 

M}^ grandfather found opportunity to 
write, in 1806, one year after a Unitarian was 
appointed professor of divinity in Harvard 
college, a volume of two liundred and 
seventy-four pages, entitled '' An Historical 
VicAV of Heresies and Vindication of the 
Primitive Faith." This book was issued 
" from the press of George Hough, sold at 
his bookstore in Concord, and at tlie book- 
store of Thomas & Whipple, Newburyport." 
A few copies still exist. He served at times 
as chaplain at the prison, and as a member of 
the town school committee. He was a trus- 
tee of Dartmouth college for a considerable 



10 Sixty Years in Concord. 

period, which included those critical years in 
its history, 1816-'19, and became involved 
in the great controversy of that time for its 
control. All that I have seen of what lie had 
to say in tlie newspapers, on behalf of the 
trustees, he said in a dignified way, and signed 
his name thereto, like a man, while the writ- 
ings of his opponents were put forth under 
editorial impersonality, or in various anony- 
mous forms. He must have enjoyed the cel- 
ebrated success which the cause gained in 
the United States court. He also performed 
some missionary services as far away as the 
Pequaket countrv, around Conway and Frye- 
burg, and was there during the sudden illness 
and death of his second wife (Nancy Dwight, 
of Belcherto wn, Mass.). It appears that he 
left her in health, and returned to learn that 
she was in her grave, within three months 
after marriage, her burial having been lis- 
tened b}^ dread of the malignant fever which 
carried her off. He passed away himself at 
an asfe below the averao^e of his ancestors. 
It is not inappropriate to apply to him these 
lines from Goldsmith's "Deserted Village :" 

But in his duty prompt at every call, 

He watched and wept, he prayed and felt, for all; 

And, as a bird each fond endearment tries 

To tempt its new-Hedo^ed offsprin*^: to the skies, 

He tried each art, reproved each dull delay, 

Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way. 



Personal Recollections. 11 

My mother's mother was Nancy Aveiy, a 
native of Deerfield, of what Carlyle calls the 
"fairest descent — that of the pious, the just, 
and wise," — a Christian of the utmost gentle- 
ness and grace, wliom tlie little folks of our 
cousiilry loved the more because she shared 
our delight when Ave came^ in shouting from 
Gilford meadows, bringing pails of berries or 
baskets of trout. She died in 1854, ao-ed 81 
years. 

My father took no care about affairs of 
ancestry. It appears that he was a descend- 
ant in the fourth generation from Daniel 
McFarland, wlio, with a son twenty-eight 
years old, came to this country in 1718 from 
the province of Ulster, Ireland, whither he 
or his ancestors had gone from Argyleshire, 
which lies opposite Ulster, across the chan- 
nel in Scotland. Daniel settled in Worces- 
ter, Mass., and his homestead (500 Pleasant 
street) remains in possession of his descend- 
ants. A considerable number of Scotch 
Presbyterian colonists at that time took up 
homes in Worcester, and were not received 
kindly by their Congregational neighbors. 
They attempted to build a church in 1740, 
but it was pulled down in the night by mili- 
tant adherents of the rival church. Not long 
afterward the McFarlands became Congrega- 
tionalists themselves. 



12 SLrfi/ Years in Concord. 

In the mother country the Mcfarlanes 
dwelt about Loch Sloy and Loch Lomond. 
Arrochar was the home of the chief of the 
clan, and the old site of his castle is now 
occupied by a hotel. In the summer of 1889 
my brother visited some of the Mcfarlanes 
living in a humble way near Loch Lomond, 
on the estate of the Duke of Montrose. Sir 
Walter Scott mentions the clan, and says 
the moon was called in their vicinity ''Mac- 
farlane's lantern." Bailie Nicol Jarvie in 
"Rob Roy" claims kinship with them, and 
through them with the Macgregors. The}^ 
were predatory and warlike folk, whose battle 
cry was "Loch Sloy," and their love of home 
and mountain, lake, river, and woodland, is 
deeply ingrained in their posterity. In 
America they are widely scattered. There 
is McFarland's mountain at Mount Desert, 
McFarland's gap on the Chickamauga battle- 
field, and McFarland's station on a railroad 
in Kansas. 

Our family homestead in Concord, built 
in 1799, now numbered 196 North Main 
street, was as comfortable as were the dwell- 
mgs of our neighbors, though the parental 
resources were limited. There was in my 
early youth a carpet for only the best room ; 
l)ut there was solid silverware, beautiful 



Personal Recollections. 13 

table-linen, and stately mahogany furniture 
of the Chippendale period, brought from 
Boston by my grandmother. The front hall 
was plainly furnislied, and its clear white- 
pine finish had never been painted. There 
were no draperies for the windows, but their 
place was supplied by sliding solid wooden 
shutters from places of concealment in the 
casings, while candles or whale-oil lamps 
shed dim* liglit on the interior. The lamps 
were of most primitive description, until 
there came one called the "astral," which 
caused as much contentment as did the 
eventual introduction of coal gas. There 
were a few pictures, among them one of Mar- 
cus Curtius riding a white liorse into the gulf 
of the forum to save Rome ; but little people 
got greater satisfaction from the winter frost- 
work on the windows, where were etchings 
of ferns, trees, and fairy castles. The porce- 
lain tableware was decorated in blue, and 
bore tlie imprint of Porter & Rolfe, local 
dealers, wlio imported it from Staffordshire 
potteries, — Burslem, the home of Josiah 
Wedgwood, being the exact place of its 
production. 

In summer our Concord streets were hot 
and dusty, but were never sprinkled arti- 
ficially; — flies and mosquitoes were numer- 



14 Sixty Years in Concord. 

ous, but there were no window-screens. 
There was neither ice nor abundant soft 
water for domestic uses, and in winter no 
home was warmed in all its needful apart- 
ments. The young people of that time 
could sleep in chambers of almost arctic tem- 
perature, bathe in water where ice was form- 
ing, and go clown to breakfast with no doubt- 
ful appetite, although in early March morn- 
ings they might be required to swallow a 
doleful mixture of sulphur and molasses, 
which was deemed an excellent spring tonic 
and in common use. 

As to the matter of dress, boys were not 
so very carefully clothed then, being pro- 
vided with neither woolen underwear, over- 
coats, nor overshoes ; for out-door use the}' 
had long boots, mufflers, caps of hair seal- 
skin, and mittens. 

However cold it might be elsewhere, there 
was gladness and cheer in the kitchen, 
around the broad open fireplace. Care was 
taken to keep live coals over nig-ht, and at 
the home of one of the neiglibors, Mr. John 
Odlin's, fire did not expire on the hearth for 
twenty-two years. The implements of cook- 
er}^ were few and simple. On a stout iron 
crane the Dutch oven hung, glowing embers 
beneath it, and hot coals on its lid. For 



Personal Recollections. 15 

larofer imdertakinf^-.s there was the tin-kitchen 
on the hearth. This was for roasting by 
exposure to the direct and reflected heat 
from the open fire, while the oven did the 
baking, and each produced results which 
were eminently satisfactory to youthful 
expectations. My own memory is partial to 
the fire-cake, wliich was cooked on a sheet of 
flat tin turned up to confront the fire at an 
angle of fifty degrees, and browned to a 
tempting shade. It must have absorbed 
some sweetness from the maple logs on the 
fii'e. 

When fuel became more costly, the cheeiy 
fireplaces were closed with bricks, the rotary 
cooking stove came into use, and the most 
picturesque features departed from tlie 
kitchen. I once heard Henry L. Hallett, 
of Boston, sa}^ that a fire on the hearth was 
better tlian a grand painting on the wall. 
The rotary stove is mentioned because that 
was the first cooking-stove I ever saw. It 
was sold in Concord by William Gault, and 
widely advertised. Its top was made to 
revolve, like a turntable for locomotives, by 
the use of a short lever, and the cooking- 
dishes were tlius brought one after another 
over the hottest portion of the fire. Gradu- 
ally otlier fireplaces in the house were closed, 



16 Sixty Years in Concord. 

and " air-tight " iron orsoapstone stoves came 
to occupy grav^e places in the living-rooms. 
Such have liad their day, and open fires have 
returned to my old home as well as to many 
others. In an old house, long the dwelling 
of a neighbor's family, once the residence of 
Rev. Israel Evans, my grandfather's prede- 
cessor in the North Church pulpit, it has 
been found that the bricks in its chimneys 
were so saturated with creosote from forty 
years' use of air-tight wood-burning stoves, 
that a disagreeable and ineradicable odor 
pervaded all its interior. 

There were three children beside myself, 
all reared in the old-fashioned method, — by 
good example and plenty of precept. Being 
the eldest, I got, as is usual, rather more 
than an average share of the training and 
up-bringing. My mother was a religious 
woman, and drilled us with careful diligence 
in the Westminster catecliism and Sunday- 
scliool lessons. 

The children of that period were given 
Bible reading as a stint. A chapter must be 
read every ijiorning before play began. In 
at least one neighboring family, ex-Gover- 
nor David L. Morril's, Fast and Thanksgiv- 
ing days were observed as strictly as was the 
Puritan Sabbath. There was generally less 



Personal Recollections. 17 

cheerfulness and good humor than now pre- 
vails among elderly people. This may be 
ascribed to the fact that life was a more 
serious business then, the fruits of toil were 
less, there were fewer amusements and fewer 
books, political differences were more bitter, 
and the tone of preaching was more severe, 
less helpful and less hopeful. 

My earliest church-going was to the Old 
North, which stood where is now the Walker 
scliool-liouse. Tlie exterior and interior of 
that edifice are imprinted on my memory, the 
especial interior features being tlie sounding- 
board of wonderful appearance, and tlie pcAV 
of Dr. Peter Renton, upholstered and tas- 
selled with red, in the east gallery. A winter 
morning ride to that church in Mr. Samuel 
Herbert's large sleigh, with my grandmother 
and others, when a considerable number of 
footstoves were taken alono- with live coals 
therein, is fixed in my recollection. Mr. 
Herbert lived in a house still standino^ at the 
corner of Main and Ferry streets, built in 
1765 by his fatlier, who was a soldier at Ben- 
nington. The horses wliich he turned out 
seemed very fleet, the sleigh-bells rung clear 
in the frosty air, and the driver vigorously 
cracked his whip. No small boy would ever 
forget such a dash through the snow-drifts. 



18 Sixty Years in Concord. 

The old North bell, which rung so invitingl}- 
on Sunday nioinings, had tlien three dail}' 
week-day ringings, — at seven in the morning, 
at noon, and at nine in the evening, -the lat- 
ter being a tradition of the English Curfew, 
which dates back to William the Conqueror. 
Just when those bells ceased to be rung- I 
cannot say, but probably about 1851. 

In the Old Xorth choir, with the viols, vio- 
lins, and clarionet, Mr. George Wood was 
the chief singer, liis voice being a tenor of 
sweetness and average strength. He enjoyed 
singing a solo, and however delightful the 
song might be, his facial expression was rather 
alarming to youthful vision. There was a 
great beam which ran across the ceiling at a 
convenient distance from the gallery, and Mr. 
Wood always fixed his eyes on that beam 
when he lifted his voice to the higher notes. 
This habit puzzled me, until I reached the 
conclusion that the beam was in some myste- 
rious way a necessary mental adjunct to the 
singing — a sort of spiritual ''lift," enabling 
him to gain more easily the upper chambers 
of song. 

The lij^mns sung were from " Watts and 
Select." At the evening service in the town 
hall " Village Hymns " was nsed. 

No more need be related here about the 



Personal Recollections. 19 

old church, because it has often been de- 
scribed, — to some extent by ray father in his 
" Outline of Biography and Recollection," 
printed in 1880, and again by Mr. Joseph B. 
Walker in his " History of Our Four Meeting- 
Houses," printed in 1881. There are remain- 
ing in New Hampsliire some better examples 
of colonial architecture than the Old North 
church, but it was more dignified and im- 
pressive than many modern religious edifices, 
and would compare with the school-house 
that stands in its place as does a rug of 
Damascus with a crazy-quilt. 

The Sunday outfit of an elderly gentleman 
of that time was a rather wonderful sight. 
A dress coat was a thino^ Avhich lasted for 
years, and through all stress and vicissitudes 
was called the best coat. Made usually 
rather narrow for the wearer, its skirts were 
long, and the collar had aspirations toward 
the top of the owner's head. In the course 
of years this lofty collar became rather un- 
sightly and unclean. A bell-topped beaver 
hat, bought perhaps for liis wedding, set off 
his dome of thought. His stock was neither a 
thing of beauty nor a joy forever: sometimes 
made of leather, always stiff and wide, it 
must have been a continual torment. It was 
a serious affair to be arrayed like one of these ; 



20 Sixty Years in Concord. 

but in partial offset, it should be stated that 
it was not considered "bad form" to sit in 
one's shirtsleeves at church if the weather 
was oppressively warm. 

The Old North pulpit seems not always 
to have been devoted to doctrinal preaching. 
The Concord Gazette of Aug. 2, 1806, con- 
tained the following advertisement : 

The Rev. Mr. McFarhmd's sermon, 
preached the next Sabbatli after tlie late 
total eclipse of the sun, is just publislied, 
and ready for subscribers, and for sale by 
George Hough, at the Concord Bookstore. 

The vestibule of the old church contained 
an object of worldly interest, to wit, a bulle- 
tin-board, on which, in fulfilment of law, the 
town clerk posted notices like the following : 

Concord, January 4, 1837. 
Mr. Joseph Bagstock, of Concord, and 
Miss Clementina Fletcher, of Hopkinton, in- 
tend marriage. 

Jacob C. Carter, Town Clerk. 

There was sometimes a considerable list of 
these fascinating announcements, to be read 
by the most devout people before entering 
church. 

In February, 1837, my mother removed her 
church relation to the South Congregational 



Personal Recollections. 21 

cliurcli, just then organized, and she is now 
(1891) one of only two original remaining 
members. My father joined the same church 
in September, 1842. 

Abont that time there were many isms in 
the air. Anti-slavery societies were numer- 
ous and aggressive, and the argumentative 
leaders in that movement were denouncing 
the churches for timidity and inaction in 
respect to the liolding of slaves in our South- 
ern states. Some of them renounced the 
Bible as a Jewish impediment to progress ; 
many withdrew from the churches, or Avere 
driven out as disturbers. There were also 
vegetarians, non-resistants, mesmerists, and 
what were called transcendentalists. When 
these notions took hold of people, tlie earlier 
symptoms were with men long hair, and with 
women short hair and a propensity to carry 
knitting-work to church. Two of tliese local 
doctrinaires, John B. Chandler and Maria 
Church, contracted marriage, the ceremony 
consisting merely of a mutual declaration, 
made in the presence of witnesses, at the 
breakfast-table. This was to cause notoriety, 
and to escape obligation to priests, as they 
styled tlie grave and reverend clergy. This 
event caused considerable local stir, and 
found mention in a book entitled " Items on 



22 Sixty Years in Concord. 

Travel, Anecdote and Popular Errors," which 
was published in Quebec in 1855. These 
folk, or some of the noisiest of them, became 
known as " Come-Outers." Stephen S. 
Foster, of the neiofliborincr town of Canter- 
bury, was one of the most radical shouters 
against what he called a hireling priesthood, 
and it became his custom to go about inter- 
rupting church services. He visited the 
South church, at that time (September, 1841) 
on the southwest corner of Main and Pleas- 
ant streets. He came to the moriiing service, 
and took a seat near the pulpit, at the 
preacher's right. After the preliminary ex- 
ercises, the pastor. Rev. Daniel James Noyes, 
arose to begin his sermon, but Mr. Foster 
stood up and began an address in regard to 
negro slavery. He was requested not to in- 
terrupt the usual services, but continued to 
speak. The organist. Dr. William D. Buck, 
overwhelmed his words Avith the notes of the 
orofan, and he seemed to be disconcerted, but 
kept his feet with a half audible remark 
about drowning his voice. He was conducted 
to the door, in a rather dignified w^ay, by two 
persons, one of whom was Col. Josiah Stevens, 
at that time secretary of state for New Hamp- 
shire. In the afternoon Mr. Foster came 
again, and began his address as soon as the 



Personal Recollections. 23 

congregation was seated, but was put out 
with less dignity and more promptitude than 
before. I was rather frightened, but remem- 
ber the buzz made b}" his feet as he held 
tliem " non-resistingly " togetlier, and was 
slid along the central aisle toward the door 
in the grip of a stout teamster and tlie church 
sexton. No unnecessary force was used and 
no personal harm inflicted, that I could see, 
but the next issue of the Herald of Freedom 
made the most of the opportunity. There 
was also a trial before a justi(;e, and a fine 
inflicted, whicli bystanders paid. At this 
trial Mr. Foster, in some remarks, likened tlie 
scene before him to that ancient court in 
Jerusalem when Pontius Pilate sat on the 
bench. Tlie justice, Mr. Stephen C. Badger, 
reminded him that there was a less worthy 
respondent present on this occasion, whereat 
Foster retorted that the judge of the tribunal 
was very different too, — perhaps not so im- 
perial, but surely a more kindly and consci- 
entious personage than the Roman governor. 
It would have been wiser, perhaps, if the 
regular morning service at the church had 
been suspended and Mr. Foster given a pa- 
tient hearing ; but I suppose there was not 
sufficient willingness to listen to the author 
of a work called '' The Brotherhood of 



24 Sixti/ Years in Concord. 

Thieves, a True Picture of the American 
Church and Clergy." 

It is rather queer that when the question 
of freeing slaves came in 1861 to be a strife 
of arras, not one of these professional aboli- 
tionists, old or young, put a gun on his 
shoulder and went to the war. None of the 
" Old Guard " of New Hampshire, as they 
have since called themselves, put their lives 
in peril by taking the field. They appear to 
have been men of talk, but not of action. 
The world is rather more fond of men, and 
the memory of men, who do something beside 
talk. 



IT. 

If we were set back to about the year 1840 
there wouki be found a state of industrial 
and business affairs singuhirly unlike that 
now prevailing. Jt would not be so easy for 
any person to accumulate anoney. A Con- 
cord citizen, of that class called " men of 
property and standing," who has lived com- 
fortabh' but without ostentation, has kept 
for many years a careful account of his an- 
nual income. Because it Avill give an idea 
of local resources during the earlier period 
of these recollections, he permits me to give 
the following net results of his labor and 
capital for ten years prior to 1849, wlien he 
was in trade on Main street : 



1839, 


$203.11 


1844, 


1 427.24 


1840, 


584.50 


1845, 


1,231.01 


1841, 


568.60 


1846, 


1,591.28 


1842, 


396.76 


1847, 


2,410.15 


1843, 


657.73 


1848. 


1,146.18 



an average for the first five years of onl}^ 
$482.14. 

In 1840 there were few railroads, no elec- 
tric telegraphs, and of course no telephones. 



26 Sixty Years iyi Concord. 

The first free bridge across the Merrimack 
had just been built here in 1839. It was a 
rather hard day's journey from Concord to 
the sea-coast. The national debt was no 
more than ten million dollars. Indiana and 
Illinois were frontier settlements. Postage 
on a half ounce letter to those remote regions 
was twenty-five cents ; for an ounce, one dol- 
lar. Boston had less than three times the 
present population of our city of Manches- 
ter, and Manchester itself was about equal to 
East Concord. There were but twenty -six 
states in the Union, and there were two and 
a half millions of slaves. The Dake de 
Joinville, with the sailing frigate " Belle 
Poule," was bearing the remains of Napoleon 
Bonaparte from St. Helena to France. Wash- 
ington Irving and James Fenimore Cooper 
were living people. There were not more 
than two ocean steamships sailing regularly 
out of the port of New York. There was 
one stationary steam engine in Concord, and 
that was regarded by strangers who ventured 
near it as an awe-compelling sight. One of 
our townsmen who boasted of smoking cigars 
which cost thirty dollars a thousand was 
deemed a great prodigal, like Lucullus. Not 
more than twent}' daily ncAVspapers were 
taken in the whole town. Paris fashions 



Persoiial Recollections. 27 

came but slowly, and there was as little public 
attention to sanitary rules as to the laws of 
the Medes and Persians. 

The central precinct of the town was but 
a picturesque village.* The air of colonial 
days was still upon it. There were at least 
three houses on Main street which had been 
frontier garrisons. One colored woman was 
living who had been a slave here in her youth, 
and appears to have been recorded as such in 
the census of 1840, — Nancy, born about 1766, 
who died in the family of Mr. Samuel Her- 
bert in 1845. If the town lias since gained 
much, as it assuredly has, in convenience, 
resources, and stateliness, something rather 
delightful of repose, simplicity, and tradition 
has gone away. 

In that day most of the dwellings were 
scattered along Main, State, Green, and Spring 
streets, then recently named (1834), and 
thoroughfares connecting these four. The 
region about South street was almost terra 
incognita. Common talk was that Sampson 
Bullard's residence on that avenue, now the 
home of Mrs. Alonzo Downing, might as well 

*In 1832 Lieut. E. T. Coke, of the Forty-fifth Regiment, 
British army, traveled through the United States and Can- 
ada, and wrote afterward "A Subaltern's Furlough." He 
said, " Nowhere did I see such beautiful villages as in New 
England, of which Concord in New Hampshire, Worcester, 
and Northampton rank preeminent." 



28 Sixty Years in Concord. 

be in Bow. Tliere were no such streets as 
Capitol, Court, Chapel, and Pitman. 

The State-house park was flanked along its 
southern border by primitive but populous 
and very noisy stables, particularly on Inau- 
guration Day. Among them was a black- 
smith's shop, where Bradbur}^ Gill struck 
mighty blows on the anvil. The Merrimack 
County Bank and the New Hampshire Sav- 
ino^s Bank, as well as- the law offices of 
Franklin Pierce and Asa Fowler, were in the 
building now occupied by the New Hamp- 
shire Historical Society. Franklin Pierce 
dwelt on Montgomery street. General Joseph 
Low, whose gilt-headed cane and confident 
manner caused the boys to regard him as the 
Croesus of the town, had a pleasant house 
with a deep front yard where Rum ford block 
noAV stands. At his death, in 1859, his estate 
was valued at about. $30,000 — a considerable 
fortune when few persons had more. Nearly 
opposite, on the corners of School street, in 
a quiet atmosphere, were the homes of his 
brother William and Deacon Benjamin 
Damon. Mr. Peter Smith could be seen in 
the streets in the capacity of town crier. 
The residence of the governor of New Hamp- 
shire had recently been where is now the 
Governor Hill building. On Warren street. 



Personal Recollections. 29 

opposite the site of our Central Fire Station, 
were an iron foundry and a tanyaid. Some 
stores in good situations on Main street were 
mere wooden shanties, one story high, gable 
to the street, boarded up broadly in front as 
high as the ridgepole to give them two- 
story pretensions. They were like the struc- 
tures to be seen around railroad stations in 
three-weeks-old Colorado and Nevada towns, 
emblazoned " Palace Saloon," " El Dorado," 
"Delmonico House," etc. There were but 
two brick buildings of any consequence on 
Main street down town, — Stickney's and 
Low's. There was nothing built on the low- 
land east of Main street but a distillery and 
two slaughter-houses. Political meetings 
(many), secular lectures (occasional), and 
social gatherings of the larger sort (few) 
w^ere in Grecian hall connected with the 
Eagle hotel, Stickney's" hall at Stickney's 
tavern, or in Washington hall, an annex to 
the Washington tavern at the North End. 
The near coming of railroads was thouglit in 
influential quarters to so threaten private 
rights that committees of vigilance were pro- 
posed to devise ways to curb their charters 
and restrain their dreaded depredations for 
right of way. Pecker & Lang's store at the 
Nortli End, corner of ]\Iain and Franklin 



30 Sixty Years in Concord. 

streets, was as prosperous as any other, and 
anything could be found there from a paper 
of pins to a hogshead of mohisses. Luther 
Roby was printing stacks of quarto Bibles in 
the brick building still standing, No. 256- 
262 North Main street, and meditating on 
schemes like the sugar trust, copper syndi- 
cate, and Standard Oil Company of to-day. 
His monopolies were to be in wafer seals and 
whale oil, if I remember aright. Knives and 
locks were then made at " Millville," shoe 
lasts at " Fush Market," potter}^ on the 
Hopkinton road, hammers and shovels at the 
state prison, silver spoons and friction 
matches, as well as drums and churns, in 
'' smoky hollow." 

Two clear, swift l)rooks crossed Main 
street, carried below its surface in culverts, 
one (called West's) at the foot of Chapel 
street, and the other near the foot of Mont- 
gomery street. One had its source west of 
the old prison, and the otlier on the present 
city hall grounds. Both met on the inter- 
vale, and flowed to the Merrimack in a 
stream copious enough to support nnmerous 
frogs, schools of minnows large enough for 
pickerel bait, and an occasional bigger fish. 
Two of my comrades declared they saw a 
trout further up West's brook than the pres- 



Personal Heeolleetions. 31 

eiit site of Mead, Mason & Co.'s steam mill. 
From the east windows of onr homestead 
there might often be seen, in the springtime 
evenings, the bright flames of torches flitting 
about on the river, l)orne in the bows of 
boats the occupants of which were engaged 
in taking fish with spears of man}^ prongs. 

There were in this seven-mile-square town 
less than five thousand inhabitants, and those 
were not altogether prosperous. The times 
had been out of joint. A speculation in 
Maine lands, which culminated in 1837, had 
brought trouble in its train. This specula- 
tion was the '-Atchison," the " Delphos," 
or the " western mortgage " of that period. 

No railroad had reached Concord, but the 
highways were fretted by a large traflic in 
teams and stage-coaches. It was an inspir- 
ing sight to see the four- and six-horse 
coaches depart in a long line for the north, 
to Burlington (two days away), Hanover, 
Haverhill, Bradford, Vt., Conway, Clare- 
mont, and intermediate towns. The adver- 
tisement of one of the Boston lines cautioned 
its friends not to buy tickets of B. P. Cheney, 
then of 11 Elm street in that city, since one 
of Boston's wealthiest citizens. The stage- 
coachmen were an important set of people, 
whose favor was sought. Every winter they 



32 Sixty Years in Concord. 

gave a coachmen's ball, one of the societ}^ 
events of the region, and it is said that peo- 
ple sometimes attended to whom Macaulay's 
characterization of Lucy Walters might ap- 
ply. These dancing parties were usually at 
Grecian hall, but may have once or twice 
drifted away to Stiekney's or the Wasliing- 
ton tavern. 

I can mention in this place as appropriately 
as in any, the gentlemen of the North End, 
for whom I had great respect, and who, being 
of good birth, ability, considerable property, 
and dignified bearing, were during many 
years regarded as the conservative or aristo- 
cratic force in public affairs. My father must 
have got in his young days a similar impres- 
sion of the predecessors of those men. He 
said to me only a day or two before he died, 
at a moment when his thoughts were wan- 
dering, but in tlie careful phrase whicli he 
always used, — " I wish I could convey to 
your mind an adequate conception of the 
attempt made in my youth to found a feudal 
aristocracy at the North End." This very 
high respect which I felt was shared by all 
the boys of my age. It was a great privilege 
for us to be permitted to look in at the Mer- 
rimack County Bank, where no one beneath 
the rank of judge, colonel, or at least select- 



Personal MecoUections. 83 

man, was permitted to sit around tlie fire 
with the elect when the Boston paper came 
to be read. 

All the churches of that date, except the 
Baptist, were plain structures of wood; the 
exception was of equal plainness, but its 
walls were of brick. The pastors were, at 
the North, Kev. Nathaniel Bouton ; at the 
South, Rev. Daniel J. Noyes ; at the Baptist, 
Rev. E. E. Cummings ; at the Unitarian, 
Rev. Moses G. Thomas ; at tlie Methodist, 
Rev. Wm. H. Hatch ; and at the Episcopal, 
Rev. Petrus Stuyvesant TenBroeck. Al- 
though it is the custom to speak of the f/ood 
old times, I do not suppose the general aver- 
age of morality was higher than now. Con- 
cord has always had at least a respectable 
rej)utation for thrift, intelligence, and well- 
doing. 

But, to go to tlie other extreme, there was 
a noted public liquor-shop in the basement 
of the Farley building, which stood where is 
now Exchange block, and connected there- 
with was a bowling alley, then considered a 
very low-toned place of amusement. Another 
rum-hole in a basement on Main street 
opposite the capitol, came to be popularly 
called the Chichester gin-shop. I have 
looked witli curiosity over the wine lists of 



84 Sixty Years in Concord. 

some famous hotels, but neither there, nor in 
the lists of old liquors imported by ancient 
houses and sold because of deatli in the 
family or otlier misfortune, have 1 seen men- 
tioned this old Chichester gin. It got its 
name in this wise : Men from out-lying 
towns, many of tliem from Loudon and Chi- 
chester, who had wood to sell in the winter, 
were constrained to remain in tlie streets 
around the state-house park until they dis- 
posed of their sled-loads. To such, the 
cheer of a warm fire and a hot drink was 
always a temptation. It became known one 
winter that tlie proprietor of this basement 
grogery kept two grades of gin, one for the 
tipple of his most fastidious customers, and 
the other for those who onh^ wanted some- 
thino' hot and strong". One day lie returned 
to his place from a brief absence, and found 
his assistant dealing out tlie best gin to a 
group of sled-drivers. At this sight excite- 
ment overpowered discretion, and he pub- 
licly rebuked tlie erring bar-keeper, point- 
ing out the gin to be served, which he said 
was good enough for the Chichester people 
with whom he was dealing. This declara- 
tion made a flurry of exasperation, and the 
qualities of Chichester gin were discussed 
and commented upon, even in families where 



Pergonal Reeolleetioas. 35 

gin was not a favorite drink. A few morn- 
ings after this occurrence an efitigy was dis- 
covered hanging from the eaves of the build- 
ing, with a black bottle marked ''Chichester 
gin " clasped to its ragged manly bosom. 
As this eavesdropper hung in front of a win- 
dow of my father's printing-office there were 
objections to its nnnaining, and '' old vet- 
eran " Hoit, the founder of the Patriot^ then 
a compositor, leaned out of a Avindow and 
cut the suspending cord, Avhen the offending 
figure shot downward, and landed on the 
stairs leading from the sidewalk to the grog- 
gery to be seen no more. 

Two local frequenters of the Chichester 
gin-shop always sat around the fire until the 
place was otherwise deserted, when they 
went home at the owner's bidding, and the 
door closed on their reluctant heels ; but one 
night the bidding was omitted, and they 
stayed on in undisturbed tranquility until 
morning, when the bar-keeper found them 
where he had left them, crooning away over 
the stove, taking no note of time. 

The effigy above mentioned was probably' 
the work of a lot of young highbinders Avho 
did about all the nocturnal mischief in town. 
One of their common pranks was to trans- 
pose business signs, fastening "Fresh Fish 



36 Si.rti/ Years in Concord. 

daily received from Boston " securely to a 
well known lawyer's office, for chnrch-going 
people to see on Sunday. The night after 
the Fourth of July was an occasion for great 
bonfires in the street in front of the state- 
house, when all the loose combustibles with- 
in read), — barrels of tar, dry goods boxes, 
out-buildings, neglected wagons, etc., — were 
piled on the fliimes. If the town constables 
appeared, they were greeted with volleys of 
rotten eggs ; but at least once (1842) the 
riot act was read, and several offenders 
arrested for disturbing the peace and dignity 
of the state, which so offended Dr. Peter 
Renton (his son John being in limbo) that 
he changed his residence to Boston, where 
he gained an extensive practice, and died in 
February, 1865. 

Many of these mischief-loving fellows were 
journeymen printers, who had more than their 
share of the spirit of misrule. Another of 
their diversions was the occasional issue of a 
ten-by-fifteen-inch paper called The Owl^ de- 
voted to tattle and scandal, which had no 
subscription list, but was distributed freely 
at doorsteps in the early morning. This 
paper had for a heading a picture of the 
bird of wisdom perched on the side of the 
globe witli a quill pen over his ear, wearing 



Personal Recollections. 37 

eye-glasses and smoking a pipe. Tliere were 
many local printing-offices then, among them 
those of the Statesman, Patriot, Herald of 
Freedoyn, Family Visitor, Congregatioyial Jour- 
nal, and Baptist Register, — about a dozen 
in all. It was supposed that The Owl itin- 
erated in its roost or place of issue, and was 
printed at night. Each journeyman of the 
gang put in type, as opportunity offered, at 
his place of employment, the copy assigned 
to him, and carried the type on gallej^s to 
the rendezvous for printing, all the materials 
being taken from the employing printers. 
When public wrath became excited, and 
search was hot, the " forms " were buried in 
the earth to await some midnight resurrec- 
tion. I think the last number of TJte Otvl 
appeared in 1848. 

The railroad, when it came, changed the 
life atid to some extent the appearance of the 
town. When the surveys for the Concord 
road were made, the engineers were in doubt 
whether to bring it liere by the route finally 
selected, or by one a little more to the west- 
ward. If the latter way had been chosen, 
the station would have beeu somewhere near 
tlie corner of Pleasant and South streets, 
and the building of the Northern railway 
lines would have divided the town in twain: 



38 Sixty Year's in Concord. 

so tlie result which was reached seems to 
have been a fortunate one. Those famous 
civil engineers, George W. Whistler, after- 
ward the great railroad luiilder in Russia, 
William Gibbs McNeill, a West Pointer, who 
commanded the Rhode Island militia in the 
Dorr rebellion, and E. S. Chesbrough, chief 
engineer of the Boston water-works and of 
the water and sewage system of Chicago, 
each had a hand in surveying or building the 
line from Boston to Concord. The Concord 
company's rails were laid down in 1842; and 
I Avent to the so-called Great Swamp, now 
market-gardens, below the present gas-works, 
to see the process of track-laying, which was 
different from current methods. A line of 
chestnut planks, three inches by eight, was 
laid below the ground, under the ends of the 
sleepers and parallel with the rails ; to these 
planks the sleepers were fastened with 
wooden bolts. This use of planks for sub- 
sills was soon determined by experience to 
be unnecessary. The ends of the nnls were 
placed in iron chairs, which are now dis- 
carded for the more satisfactory fisli-plates. 
All the territory, where are now the tracks, 
station buildings, and Railroad square itself, 
was raised several feet above its natural level, 
and much of the gravel used for grading was 



Personal Re collect ions. '^9 

carted across town from " saiul hill," at tlie 
west side of tlie existing central precinct. 

I was among the mnltitnde of townspeople 
who gathered in the evening of September 6, 
1842, to see the first railway passenger train 
come into Concord. This train of three pas- 
senger cars was drawn by the '* Amoskeag," 
a small locomotive bnilt by Hinkley & Drnry 
of Boston, ten and a half tons in weight, 
Avith one pair of driving-wheels five feet in 
diameter. George Clongh was the conduc- 
tor, Leonard Grossman, engineer, and Seth 
Hopkins, fireman. The engineer and fireman 
were wholly exposed to the weather, as the 
cab for locomotives was not devised until 
years later. Tlie station buildings to which 
this train came were lowly, but sufficient. 
This important event was noticed in the Pat- 
riot to the extent of a quarter of a column : an 
unusually sprightly local Democratic caucus 
a few weeks before got a column and a half. 

Fires have greatly changed the appearance 
of our town. Except the sites of Rumford 
and Woodward's blocks. Button's building, 
Masonic Temple, old Goncord Bank and 
Board of Trade buildings, I have seen all 
the business- territory on both sides of Main 
street, between Bridge and Pleasant streets, 
burned over once, some of it twice. 



III. 

During 1113^ boj^liood Concord had few peo- 
ple of foreign birth. Michael Spellman and 
Peter Murphy Avere among the first Irishmen 
whom T remember. There was a Patrick 
Gunning, a tramp, who kept Concord in his 
orbit, alwa3"s begged a clean shirt but was 
never known to wear one, and, in rich 
brogue, announced himself to be on the way 
to Montreal. His last appearance here, so 
far as I know, was in 1863. 

At West Concord was Patrick Tyiiing, 
born at Kilkenny, a soldier in the British 
army which burned the capitol and the presi- 
dent's house at Washington in 1812, and got 
routed at New Orleans. 

Another one, back of my remembrance, 
wdiom my father knew, was James Phelan. 
He went hence to Boston, blew an organ in 
the Catholic church of the Holy Cross, sold 
tickets in the Federal Street theatre, and then 
embarked in the hardware trade in New 
York. In the latter city he became conspic- 
uous in public undertakings, acquired a 
great estate, and had a house at Newport, 



Personal Reeollections. 41 

R. I. Still later he went to Paris, became a 
companion of the Count D'Orsay (who died 
in 1852), and gave entertainments rivalling 
those of the titled people in tliat great city. 
He was one of the American friends who 
welcomed Charles Sumner to Paris in 1872, 
when the senator last visited Europe. 

John Anderson, a Scotch shoemaker, had a 
shop in "smoky hollow." He was a fervent 
Democrat. When Gen. William Henry Har- 
rison was elected president in 1840, Mr. 
Anderson was cast into the depths of woe, 
and declared tliat Democracy had fallen never 
to rise again. 

Some of the youngsters of Concord were 
taught by Miss Sally Parker. Her school, 
which was for the youngest pupils, was in an 
east room of her house, now No. 14 Centre 
street. The apartment was unfinished, lathed 
but not plastered, and the seats were long- 
wooden benches without backs. Prizes of 
three butternuts were distributed every Sat- 
urday to winners of class honors. Who were 
the scholars, and what books were studied, I 
cannot A^enture to say. 

On the next lot south of ni}^ fatlier's house 
stood a yellow cottage, an appanage of the 
Dr. Peter Green estate. Here came to dwell 
Mrs. Ruby Bridges Preston, a widow, teacher 



42 Sixty Year^ in Concord. 

by the Lancastrian system of a school for 
children. Her front room was the rendezvous 
of little pupils, among whom my mother 
enrolled me. Of the children who gathered 
there I can call to mind with certainty only 
three boys, namely, William Chadbourne, 
Robert A. Hutcliins, and Henry G. Burleigh. 
William Chadbourne was a son of Dr. 
Thomas Chadbourne, and years afterward 
became a partner in tlie great dry-goods 
house of James M. Beebe & Co., of Bos- 
ton, in whose behalf he crossed the At- 
lantic forty times. He died in Brookline, 
Mass., May 15, 1868, aged thirty-six years. 
— Robert A. Hntchins (son of Ephraim 
Hutchins) served on the staff of General 
Wilcox in the war for the Union, with gal- 
lantry like that of his great-grandfather Col. 
Gordon Hutchins in the Revolutionary war. 
Robert w^as the handsomest boy of his time 
in the town, and when a man, would have 
made as dramatic a figure as did the Revolu- 
tionary colonel who walked up the aisle of 
the Old North church on an August Sunda}^ 
in 1777, with the dust of his gallop from 
Exeter still on his shoulders, to tell the 
startled congregation that a British army 
under General Burgoyne was marching from 
Canada toward New York, and that General 



Personal MecoUections. 4o 

Stark would leave next morning with the 
New Hampshire volunteers to strike tlie hos- 
tile expedition. Robert died at Los Angeles, 
Cal., Oct. 15, 1883, aged fifty years. — Henry 
G. Burleigh's father, a manufacturer of shov- 
els, contractor for labor at the state prison, 
lived where now stands the city hall, almost 
directly opposite the site of Mrs. Preston's 
yellow cottage. Henry has spent most of 
his prosperous life at Ticonderoga and White- 
liall, N. Y., and has had the honor to repre- 
sent the Eighteenth New York district in 
the Forty-eiglith and Forty-ninth congresses, 
receiving at his last election 20,732 votes 
against 2,817 for all others. 

Mrs. Preston died in Concord, Aug. 15, 
1881, aged eighty-two years. She had a son, 
James, a sailor, whose loose blue flannel suit, 
with wide-bottomed trousers and tarpaulin 
hat, with a fathom of ribbon flowing behind, 
caused our eyes to open very wide when he 
came liome in full sea rig. He died of fevei* 
ofi the coast of Africa in 1848. 

Getting away from INJrs. Preston's, I sat 
under the instruction of Miss Mary Ann 
Allison, in a house which stood where is now 
the North churcli. This house was built for 
Capt. Joshua Abbott, who fouglit at Bunker 
Hill, and was said to be in 1855 one of the 



44 Sixty Years in Concord. 



oldest sixteen in Concord main village. It 
is still in existence, being now No. 12 Wash- 
ington street. Shadrach Seavey had altera- 
tions made in it during his ownership thereof, 
and fonnd a brick in the chimney bearing the 
date '4765" marked in its soft clay before 
burning. 

There was a little more discipline at Miss 
Allison's school than I had experienced 
before, and when the class in Malte-Brun's 
Geography was on the floor, and some luck- 
less wight ventured to shout "Mild and sa- 
lubrious !" in reply to a question about tlie 
climate of Patagonia, he was liable to suffer 
some penalty for his words without knowl- 
edge ; — but most of the climatic descriptions 
in that geography were "cold and inhospi- 
table," "mild and salubrious," or "hot and 
unhealthy," and we rarely got far out of our 
latitude in guessing at suitable answers to 
interrogatories on that theme. 

My playmates and schoolmates of this and 
a little later period were, beside tliose before 
mentioned, Edward P. Carter, Robert Sher- 
burne, Samuel and William H. Morril, 
George W. Gault, Edward Whipple, George 
H. Sanborn, Charles H. West, William L. 
Gage, and Nathaniel E. Gage. Of all I have 
named, only four are living. Edward Carter 



Personal BecoUections. 45 

died ill Central City, Colorado, April 9, 1868, 
aged thirty-four years. Robert Sherburne 
is a farmer in Illinois. Samuel Morril is a 
physician at Marlboro, Pitt county, North 
Carolina. His brother William resided there, 
until his death, which occurred about six 
3^ears ago. During the War of the Rebel- 
lion, William was a staff officer in Mahone's 
Division of the Southern army. George 
Sanborn became an inventor of printers' and 
bookbinders' machinery, prospered, and died 
in or near New York city. Cliarles West 
was a paymaster in the navy during the War 
of the Rebellion, and died in Winchester, 
Mass. Nathaniel Gage was a pliysician, and 
perished from cold on a Western prairie ; 
while his brother William was a distin- 
guished writer and preacher of the Congre- 
gational church, settled for many years at 
Hartford, Conn., and died in 1889. He once 
received a call to the Richmond Street 
church, in Edinburgh, Scotland. George 
Gauit, after going to sea before the mast in 
a ship commanded by my uncle, William 
McFarland, settled down to country life in 
Gilmanton, and became a deacon de facto, 
as he had been by courtesy in his youth. 
George was long my most intimate friend. 
He lived with his uncle, John Stickney, on 



46 Si.Hi/ Years in Concord. 

the old Stickiiey Tavern estate, which dated 
back to 179-4:, now changed utterly, but the 
site opposite my old home has since been 
owned in part by Mr. John H. Pearson. The 
axe was laid to the root of the old tavern sign- 
post probably about 1838-'40. The swinging 
sign-board which it long supported had on 
either face, in good strong colors, the figure 
of an Indian with bow and tomahawk, and 
the legend '^ J. Stickne}^ 1794.'" 

The old tavern hall was a favorite place 
Avith us. There in the early part of tlie cen- 
tur\^ had been famous dancing parties, and in 
1818 a great dinner to General Ripley, of 
Maine, a soldier in the War of 1812, when 
the principal decoration was the national flag- 
displayed on a fishpole. There, on March 4, 
1825, was a dinner in honor of the inaugu- 
ration of President John Quincy Adams. 
This old hall abundantly lighted, and the 
great sheds and barns opening to the south, 
with liorses and cattle and plenty of room, 
made the Stickne}^ estate a grand place for 
boys in any kind of weather. In the stable 
was one of our particular friends, '' Old 
Judge," the horse, and in the yard anotlier, 
''Old White," the dog. 

M}^ father drew the following picture of 
the Stickney tavern, as it was about 1825 : 



Personal Recollections. 47 

Stickney's was the stage tavern of the 
town. The celebrated reinsmen of the 
period were to be found there, in all their 
pride of place, — Parsons, Bly, Walker, and 
others ; we can see them as clearly as if yes- 
terday, standing near the front door. And 
not the drivers only, but their horses and 
coaches, and the long tin -horns whicli the}^ 
blew on approaching the town. Parsons had 
at one time four wliite horses for the team 
driven into Concord. They were lost at the 
burning of the Anderson tavern, about 1822, 
on the turnpike between Hooksett and Ches- 
ter, when Tom shed bitter tears that he 
could fondle and drive them no more. 

A Vermont traveller once said they could 
at Stickney's make better beefsteak of red 
oak chips than he obtained in some taverns 
where they served what purported to be beef. 

Stickney's tavern was a resort of rep- 
utable travellers, — stage passengers, people 
going about in their own vehicles, Vermont- 
ers going to Boston, Salem, and Newbury- 
port with country produce, and footsore and 
dusty pedestrians, cane in hand. Undesir- 
able people, if they went to the house, were 
not apt to like the ''lay of the land," and 
did not remain long within its portals. All 
well disposed people reaching tliis house felt 
they had gained an excellent harbor. 

A favorite winter drink of the days when 
this tavern was in its prime was " flip." 
One of the most common banters of the 
olden time was, ''Til bet a mug of flip." 



48 SLvtif Year^ in Concord. 

This drink consisted of beer and rum, with 
supfar and orated nutmes'. When mixed, tlie 
poker, always during winter kept in the fire, 
was thrust red hot into the mug, and then 
the foaming liquid was " flip." 

The arrival of coaches at Stickney's de- 
pended upon the state of the weather and 
the roads. Those from Boston, in favor- 
able seasons, reached here before 6 p. m. ; 
those going north or south left at 4 a. m. 
A long tin liorn was blown at departure, and 
also on arrival, — indeed, on going into any 
village, to notify postmaster, taverner, and 
all concerned to be ready for the exercise of 
their duties. Many people can testify to the 
comfort they took in this wayside inn. 

Dancing parties at Stickney's assembled at 
an early hour. I have seen an invitation to 
one such printed on a playing-card, the five 
of diamonds (perhaps a hint tliat card-pla}- 
ing would be allowed), which read as fol- 
lows : 

SOCIAL BALL. 

The company of Mr. and Mrs. Chandler is 
requested at Stickney's hall, on Thursday even- 
ing next, at 5 o'clock. 

W. A. Kent, ) 
R. H. Ayer, > Managers. 
C. Emery, ) 
Concord, Nov. 29, 1806. 

Li the great Avoodshed of the Stickney 
tavern, George Peabody, aftei'ward the emi- 



Personal Recollections, 49 

nent London banker and piiilantliropist, once 
cut firewood to pay for a night's lodging, when 
in 1810, as a boy of fifteen, without surplus 
money, he was on his way from Danvers to 
live a 3^ear with his grandfather in Thetford, 
Vt. AVhen he visited Concord in 1858, as 
the guest of Hon. N. G. Upham, he related 
this fact to Hon. Ira Perley. George Gault 
and I were occasionally called upon to cut 
wood in this shed, but in no other way have 
our fortunes resembled those of Mr. Pea- 
body. 

In the Stickney kitchen was a colonial 
fireplace, wide enough for sticks of wood 
four feet long, and Miss Susan Stickney did 
not object to our whittling in a part of that 
room, so a large share of our winter carpen- 
try was carried on there. Capt. NatJmn 
Stickne}', wdio owned the next estate, we 
were rather shy of, for a boy discovers read- 
ily who of the grown people have no longing 
for his societ}^ ]Mrs. Ezra Carter (mother 
of Edward) and Mrs. Thomas Chadbourne 
(mother of William) were always indulgent 
to boys, and we favored them with much of 
our company. Our calls were not of a very 
ceremonious character, being often made 
without preliminary rap at the door, or 
waitino- for an usher to escort us in : such 



50 Sixty Years in Concord. 

formalities were not considered then as of 
the utmost importance. Mrs. Chadbourne 
was before marriage Clarissa Dwiglit Green, 
a daughter of Dr. Peter Green, named for 
my grandfather's hrst Avife, Clarissa Dwight, 
of Belcliertowu, Mass., wlio died a few days 
before her namesake was born. 

There were summer visitors to Concord 
then, the like of whom are not seen here now 
— girls from Switzerland, who sang street 
songs to the accompaniment of a tambour- 
ine. They had indifferent, overtasked voices, 
but my father listened with apparent pleas- 
ure to their whole rejjerfoire. Tliere may 
not have been nnich delight in the music, 
but the costumes and songs of the Swiss can- 
tons probably carried his imagination away to 
Alpine valleys, which he had a longing to see. 

Miss Allison, our teacher, transferred her 
scliool, first, to a room over a drug store and 
tract depositorv in a structure standing tlie 
second south of the Historical Society's 
building, and thence to one of the jurj- 
rooms in the old town- and court-house, 
which stood near the present junction of 
Main and Court streets. At the last place I 
got a hard fall on the long stairs, and was 
taken home wounded and frightened. On 
the lower floor of this plain colonial building 



Personal Recollections. 51 

was the town hall, and in its vestibule, or in 
the town hall itself, were stored on cross- 
beams some most astonishing implements 
called fire-hooks, designed for pulling down 
burning buildings. They were very un- 
wieldy and rarely put to use, but made an 
excellent roosting-place for expert climbers 
on town-meeting day ; and it was from that 
heiglit of vantage that Deacon Caleb Parker, 
in 1838, charged Cj'rus Barton with voting 
double. This was a subject for talk and 
newspaper paragraphs for 3^ears afterward, 
Colonel Barton being then the editor of the 
Patriot. 

Our school holidays of that time were not 
always spent exactly to our liking. There 
was a considerable period when such of us as 
worshipped at the South church were sent 
thither on Saturday afternoons to recite the 
Westminster Assembly's Shorter Catechism 
to the pastor. That work was all in my 
memory, both questions and answers, and 
will never be wholly forgotten ; nor shall I 
ever forget the look of astonishment which 
came to the face of the pastor when on one 
occasion he surprised us all playing "tag," or 
" follow my leader," among the seats of the 
chapel, and gave us a considerate rebuke for 
lack of respect to the temple. 



52 Sixty Years in Concord. 

Fourth of July, too, was wont to be given 
to cold-water-army marching and Sunday- 
school celebrations ;— so when that ever-glo- 
rious day came, most of the, town cliildren 
were paraded under various banners, each 
denominational band of Sunday-school pupils 
by itself, and marched to tlie Old North 
to hear addresses on temperance ; thence to 
the State-house yard, tired, hot, dusty, and 
hungry, to be refreshed with cake and cold 
water or lemonade so long as the cake lasted, 
afterward witli barrels of dry crackers brought 
from the bakery of Capt. Ebenezer Symmes. 
A little pamphlet relating to the celebration 
of 1841 was published. It gives the names 
of the teachers and scholars then present from 
each Sunday-school, and shows the following 
totals,— North churcli, 220 ; Methodist, 80 ; 
Episcopal, 71; South church, 230; Baptist, 
108; Unitarian, 107. Total, 81(3. On that 
occasion the tables were spread in a field 
near Richard Bradley's home, and a thunder 
shower disturbed affairs. After my last ap- 
pearance at one of those festivities, I went 
home, and, within hearing of my father, made 
a little declaration of independence, to the 
effect that I would never go to another such 
celebration, and, much to my joy, this resolu- 
tion was approved by the home government. 



Personal ReeoUections. 53 

The schools of that period were not 
graded, so we had pupils of various ages and 
different attainments in the same apartment. 
There were first, second, and third classes in 
reading, arithmetic, and other branches of 
study. One advantage this old way certainly 
had : 3'oung people could listen to the recita- 
tions of those more advanced than them- 
selves, and learn something by hearsay. It 
would be interesting to see the school-books 
of that time, — the New Hampshire Book, the 
American First Class Book, Porter's Rhetor- 
ical Reader, Olney's Geography (beside 
Malte-Brun's, alread}^ mentioned), Com- 
stock's Philosophy, Cutter's Ph3'siology, 
Webster's Spelling Book, Adams' Arithme- 
tic (published at Keene, N. H.), Colburn's 
Arithmetic, Greenleaf's Arithmetic, and 
Smitli's Grammar. 

Penmanship was taught with more care 
and lather more success than now, but ours 
is not a nation of penmen ; the English and 
Germans excel in this respect. 

It seems to me that I went from school to 
school in a rather desultory way, but it was 
merely change of place and teacher ; books 
and methods were generally the same. There 
were in our main village three public school 
buildings, for districts numbered 9, 10, and 



54 Sixty Years in Co7ieord. 

11 ; that for District 10 was the Bell school- 
house, situated where is now the high school 
building, and that for District 11 was a rather 
dignified two-story brick building at the 
corner of State and Church streets, on what 
Avas formerly called Parsonage lands. 

Some of our Concord old-time pedagogues 
afterward attained eminence, — for instance, 
Hon. Levi Woodbury, Benjamin Thompson 
or Count Rumford, Prof. Edwin D. Sanborn, 
Hon. George W. Nesmith, Nathaniel H. 
Carter, and Rev. Abraham Burnham. 

I was at tlie Bell school a long while, the 
same that my father and uncles had attended. 
How thickly and deeply the old desks and 
seats were scarred by generations of destruc- 
tive jack-knives ! The existing building for 
the high school is the fourth which I have 
seen on that site, each a great improvement 
on its predecessor. Masters Moses H. 
Clougli and James Moulton at different 
times swayed the ferule there during my 
early pupilage. John Towne was also a 
dominie in this school for a considerable 
period, and was at the same time deputy sec- 
retary of state, — a fact Avhich suggests that 
the occupation of teaching was not deemed 
so exhaustive of vital forces as it is now said 
to be. There was considerable punishment 



Personal Recollections. bb 

in this school, and the ferule and rattan were 
never far away. They were kept in hand as 
necessary badges of authority in all the 
schools for larger pupils of that time. 

At this school I came first and last, within 
the circuit of some new companions, — Abel 
and George H. Hutchins, John and Charles 
Kent, Charles P. Sanborn, afterward speaker 
of the house of representatives, Benjamin E. 
Badger, Gustavus Walker, Henry H. Gil- 
more, lately mayor of Cambridge, Mass., 
Thomas J. Treadwell, who graduated at 
West Point, and served in the Ordnance 
Corps of the army, J. Hamilton Low, Edson 
C. Eastman, Charles H. Foster, recently a 
sugar importer in Boston, John Chandler, 
wlio lived sometime at Manila as agent for 
William F. Weld & Co., the largest ship 
owners of Boston, Henry W. Fuller, George 
Henry Chandler, major of the Nintli New 
Hampshire Regiment, William E. Chandler, 
now a United States senator, James E. Ran- 
kin, since a Congregational clergyman, now 
president of Howard University, and J. Henry 
Gilmore, now a professor in Rochester Uni- 
versity. The last two are known as authors 
of famous hymns. 

There came home from West Point in my 
school days a young man in the uniform of 



56 Sixty Years in Concord. 

the military academy, who was regarded with 
much curiosit}^ This was Napoleon Jerome 
Tecumseh Dana, whose mother and sister 
then lived in the house next north of the 
residence of the late Gov. Onslow Stearns. 
He was heard of afterward when he marched 
with tlie renowned First Regiment of Min- 
nesota to join the Army of the Potomac. In 
Februar}^ 1862, he was a brigadier-general, 
commanding the Third Brigade of Sedgwick's 
Division in the Second Army Corps. He 
was severely wounded in the impetuous at- 
tack of this corps, under General Sumner, on 
the enemy's left wing, at Antietam. I met 
him again in 1886, when he was president 
and I was secretar}^ and treasurer of the Mon- 
tana Union Railway, an offshoot of the Union 
Pacific Compan}'. 

Walter Brown, or Darkey Brown as we 
called him because of his swarthy complexion, 
indulged in a rather amnsing escapade at the 
Bell school. One morning he brought a red 
squirrel in his pocket, and when the exercises 
of the forenoon were well advanced, the 
little creature left its place of concealment 
and ran out-of-doors with Walter in full cry 
in pursuit, starting from his seat near the 
middle of the large room. Neither the cap- 
tive nor the captor returned that day. 



Personal Becollections. 57 

Walter was, like all the rest of us, fond of 
the woods, and it was said that he could 
crack a chestnut-biirr with his bare heel. 
.The last I heard of him he was in Iowa about 
1860, advertising for a wife. 

My ambition at this time was to become a 
carpenter, like one wliom I heard could earn 
$1.25 a day ; or a miller, the latter fancy hav- 
ing taken hold of me during a visit to a tidy 
gristmill in a picturesque nook on the Win- 
nipiseogee river at Meredith Bridge. All 
the boys had spells of wanting to go to sea : 
mine were cared by the advice of my uncle 
William, a ship-master who was a sailor from 
boj'hood. 

I was awa}^ from the Bell school at inter- 
vals, during one of which I trod the paths to 
Academy hill, where in a lonesome building- 
was what was left of the Concord Literary 
Institution. In 1835 moved by Mr. T. D. 
P. Stone, a young gentleman from Andover, 
Mass., an associated effort had been made to 
establish an academy on the hill, with normal, 
academical, high, and preparatory depart- 
ments. The first intent was to build of 
granite, but that purpose failed. The wooden 
building, fifty-four by fifty-eight feet, had 
boys' and girls' studj^-rooms, recitation-rooms, 
a laboratory, and a spacious hall for rhetori- 



58 Sixty Years in Concord. 

Cell and public exercises. About one liundi-ed 
shareholders were in the undertaking, and 
the roll of pupils contained, first and last, 
nearly two tliousand names, from all New Eng- 
land, Oliio, and Alabama, and from Greece 
and Spain one each. In 1835 there were 
eleven teachers and more than two hundred 
and fifty students. The ambitious undertak- 
ing was not rewarded with prosperit}^, and 
after a time the property was leased for the 
uses of a private school. Mr. Aaron Day, 
just out of Dartmouth college, and Miss 
Emily Pillsbury were the instructors during- 
my pupilage, and the hall, being airy and 
well lighted, was the school-room. I fix the 
year of my attendance as 1843 by circum- 
stantial evidence only. ]\rost of the scliolars 
were attacked briefly by a prevalent influenza 
called the " Tyler Grip," because it appeared 
contemporaneously with President Tyler's 
visit to New England, which occurred that 
year. Then, too, we had a season of great 
interest in a popular excitement which 
sprung out of the hanging at sea of three 
chief mutineers on the brig '' Somers," of the 
United States Navy, the culprits being 
Spencer, Cromwell, and Small. Spencer was 
a son of Hon. John C. Spencer, secretary of 
war. Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, sailor 



Personal Mecollections. 59 

and author, was the commander of the ves- 
sel, and, being accused of harshness and 
imprudence, was court-martialed on arrival 
at New York, but fnlly exonerated. This 
hanging was in December, 1842, and as the 
consequent excitement ran along into the fol- 
lowing year, this seems to confirm the other 
date. We went so far as to suspend some 
paper effigies of the mutineers to the ceiling 
of our scliool-room. 

Among the effects left over from the 
wreck of the academy were some philosophi- 
cal apparatus, among which was \i\\ orrery, 
to teach us the movements of the planets, 
an air-pump and receiver, by which we 
learned that a mouse could not live happil}^ 
in a vacuum, and a primitive dynamo, from 
Avhich we got some idea of the power of elec- 
tricity. (Tliis apparatus is now in the posses- 
sion of Benj. E. Badger, Esq.) This was the 
same year that congress appropriated f 30,000 
to enable Prof. S. F. B. Morse — the former 
portrait painter in Concord — to build the 
first electric telegrapli, from AVashington to 
Baltimore. 

One may not be so fi-ee to deal witli the 
names of school-girls, but I suppose Miss 
Clara Lancaster was regarded generally as 
the local beauty of the period. She mar- 



60 Sixty Year^ in Concord. 

ried a swarthy Cuban of at least middle age, 
and it is doubtful whether any one in Con- 
cord knows what became of her. 

Concord was so sparsely settled that I went 
usually across lots from my home on Main 
street to the academy, where Academy street 
now is, without causing inconvenience to 
anybody. 

A little battle of the Tom-Brown-at-Rugby 
description, between two of the older boys, 
was fought one evening, and divided us for 
a few days into rival clansmen. One of the 
belligerents, George Renton, died in Boston 
a few years ago ; the other lives in St. Louis. 

Oratory and the drama were not utterly 
neglected at the academy. Our great 
speaker, so I thought, was Samuel Morril, 
son of ex-Governor David L. Morril. Car- 
dinal Wolsey charged Cromwell to fling away 
ambition ; but our school had never heard of 
this priestly advice, and Ave essayed a public 
dramatic exhibition. Some scenes from the 
tragedy of Pizarro, by Kotzebue, were given 
to a crowded house. This is one of the 
passages : 

Gomez. — On yonder hill, among tlie palm- 
trees, we have surprised an ohl Peruvian. 
Escape by flight he could not, and we seized 
him unresisting. 

Pizarro. — Drao- him before us. 



Perso7ial RecoUections. 61 

I have never seen these lines since they were 
delivered in the old academy, and they may 
not be correctly given. 

This play was followed by a farce, of 
which it is enougli to say that it was the 
production of a school-boy, William Chad- 
bourne. The text and the acting were wliat 
they were. The members of the six Shake- 
speare clubs now in Concord might have 
smiled behind their fans had they been pres- 
ent on that elevating occasion. This was 
perhaps the last flicker of the candle on that 
hill of science. The doors of the academy 
did not reopen to pupils. The building was 
taken down, and wrought into some houses 
now standing near Main street, south of the 
last residence of Governor Hill. 



IV. 



I was at Pembroke Academy for the sum- 
mer and autumn sessions of 1844, 1845, and 
1846. The town of Pembroke, like Gold- 
smith's Auburn a village of tlie plain, was 
at that time rent by factions, one being par- 
tisans of the Academy, and the other champ- 
ions of the Gymnasium, a younger and rival 
school, alleged to be less orthodox in its 
teachino'. Church and state were divided on 
this school question. On the way to the 
Academy I was often the target for the gibes, 
and sometimes the missiles, of students or 
enterprising friends of the younger seminary. 
I could throw a stone with some force and 
accuracy on suitable occasions, and those of 
us who lived north of the Academy, and had 
to pass the G^annasium four times a day, 
finally obtained peace by being always ready 
to fight for it. 

The principals of the Acadeni}^ during the 
above-named years were, successively, Charles 
G. Burnham and Jonathan Tenney; assist- 
ants, or preceptresses as they were called. 
Miss Elizabeth Fuller, Miss Emily PillsUny, 
and Miss Clara A. Brown. Before this I 



Personal Recollections. 63 

had seen a Latin dictionary, and Andrews 
iind Stoddard's Latin Reader and Grammar. 
At Pembroke Virgil was read, and also Sal- 
lust. Arithmetic was not very difficult, and 
I could solve the usual examples. Mr. Ten- 
ney sometimes sent me to the blackboard to 
show some older boy the way out of trouble ; 
but in declamation and original composition 
I had not good standing. None of the pupils 
of that period has attained a very eminent 
station in life, so far as I know. Albert 
Palmer obtained the mayoralty of Boston ; 
John Thornton Wood, who wrote ^\faciam 
viam " under his name on the fly-leaf of 
school-books, became a writer on the Phila- 
delphia Nortli American, and is now a resi- 
dent of Washington ; and Natt Head blew a 
bugle in the Hooksett band and reached tlie 
governor's chair in New Hampshire. 

My room-mate at Pembroke was Nathaniel 
L.^ Upham, now a Congregational clergyman 
residing in Philadelphia. Rev. Abraham 
Burnham, Nathaniel's grandfather, took us 
into his family, and was as kind to us as if 
we had been his sons. My grandfather had 
a part at his ordination in 1808, when the 
Concord paper said, — " To the credit of the 
people who attended, during a long exercise 
the greatest degree of order and decorum 



64 Sixty Years in Concord. 

prevailed." Mr. Burnhain had a serious face, 
thoughtful expression, and was ratlier abrupt 
in manner, so his real character did not man- 
ifest itself to everybody. He kept a good 
horse, and was fond of having us drive with 
him to " Buck street," or North Pembroke. 
There was an abundance of wholesome food 
on liis table, at which we were never seated 
until, all assembled and standijig, the divine 
blessing had been solicited. He liked cheer- 
ful conversation and a lively joke. I remem- 
ber an occasion at family prayers when he 
read a chapter of the Old Testament, in 
which mention is made of the Hebronites. 
Closinp' the Bible with a smart bano- he re- 
marked, — " We have some Hebronites in New 
Hampshire." " Why, wliere ? " said Mrs. 
Burnham, with manifest surprise. '' Up in 
Hebron," replied he gaily, tlien arose and 
began a fervent prayer. To those who 
deemed him a severe man this would have 
seemed a queer thing to do, but the truth is 
he was not a severe man. He was a brisk, 
hearty New England clergymjin, sound and 
mellow, not too theological to be human. 

My father was not subjected to great ex- 
pense for my living in Rev. Mr. Burnham's 
family. The stipulated price was -$1.50 a 
week, but in consideration of my driving the 



Personal Recollections. Q^ 

cow to and from pasture one week, and carry- 
ing wood from shed to kitchen and watering 
the horse the alternate . week, the price was 
reduced to 11.25. ]\Iy room-mate performed 
like serv^ice on alternate ' weeks. What 
would a lively Harvard student, maintaining 
a suite of rooms, a piano, and bouquet for his 
centre table, with annual college and per- 
sonal expenses of from -11^2,000 to -^5,000, 
think of so small an outlay ? 

My journeyings to and fro with tliat cow 
were satisfactory opportunities for reflection 
and observation. The sleek creature had the 
riglit of way, for it had been settled in the 
clash of battle, with much pawing of dust, 
and bellowing, and onset of horns, that she 
could defend her privilege against all milch 
kine along the road. There were berries to 
gather, squirrels to chase, and skunks to 
hurl stones after; also shy upland plovers, 
fluttering and limping away from j)asture 
nooks, enticing one away from their homes 
where beautiful eggs were hid in soft herb- 
age under overhanging berry-bushes. Trout 
would come up for a grasshopper to the sur- 
face of every pool in a brook from which they 
have now been gone these forty years; and 
there was that wondei'ful Fife liouse, under 
the builder's hand then, not completed yet. 



66 Sixtij Yearn in Concord. 

I was permitted to come home to Concord 
on alternate Saturdays to remain over Sun- 
day, the homeward journey being made on 
foot, and the return usually by railway as far 
as Robinson's Ferry. The first time I went 
toward Pembroke Acadeni}^ by rail, Hon. 
N. G. Upham (my room-mate's father), 
superintendent of the Concord railroad, told 
Mr. George Clough, the conductor, to pass 
me free for that one time, the first occasion 
on which I travelled as a '' dead-head " — a de- 
lightful experience. Gail Hamilton says it 
seems to be a hardship for anybody to pay 
car fare, because one wants all his mone}^ to 
spend at the journey's end ; and to the truth 
of that statement abundant testimony might 
be found. 

Being able during school hours to prepare 
myself sufficiently to pass the recitations, 
there was time for woods and fields, and I 
knew every eddy in the river, all the good 
fishing-places, the best forests for chestnuts, 
and did such shooting as could be done witli 
a long bow, a gun being prohibited. Knox's 
woods were abundant in nuts, but an edict 
of the proprietor, enforced b}^ his big dog, 
barred ns out; still Ave- foraged around the 
edges under far-reaching trees. 

Our regular 1)athing-place was a pool in 



Personal Recollections. 67 

the Merrimack, and here one afternoon was 
dragged out a boy named McQnesten, who 
had ventured beyond his depth, and was 
splashing and struggling in distress. Near 
by this favorite spot was the eccentric Daniel 
Flagg's shower-bath. Here was a hogshead 
held aloft on poles, and piped so that it would 
drop an avalanche of cold spring water from 
a height. of twenty feet on the stark and 
cranky individual willing to defy mosquitoes 
and the e3"es of the forest. I never saw this 
invigorating apparatus put to use, and sus- 
pect it did not give its owner the satisfaction 
which he had hoped to derive from it. Daniel 
was a queer character, not over fond of work. 
Barefooted in summer, thinly clad all the 
year, gaunt and pinched, he claimed to use 
for food or raiment no article to obtain which 
had cost some animal its life. He fellow- 
shipped to some extent with the people 
known as " Come-outers." 

Many of my schoolmates at Pembroke 
were in training for college, to Avhich I had 
no inclination, but a new Bell school-house 
having been built, I was there for a while, 
with Mr. Hall Roberts as instructor. 



V. 

Although the boys of 1840-'45 were with- 
out tennis, croquet, and cigarettes, there was 
sufficient amusement. Marbles and ball were 
taken up as soon as the snow was gone, base- 
ball being a favorite game, although it had 
not the modern rules and strange devices. 
We walked on high stilts, flew kites away up 
in the blue ether, and built miniature saw- 
mills on West's brook. With the aid of a 
pliant stick and a short knotted string, we 
shot darts out of sight skyward. The most 
conspicuous ball-ground was the state-house 
park, and a game could usually be found 
there any week day in April or May; on Fast 
Day, three or four games at the same time. 
On the stone wall, then tlie north boundary 
of the park, was perclied a row of spectators, 
like swallows on a telephone wire. There 
was no restraining reverence for the capitol. 
Boys with lofty aspirations climbed by tlie 
lightning-rod from the ground, and crossed 
the dome of the edifice as it then was, to 
seat themselves astride the eagle's neck. 
This was a favorite pastime for Abiel Carter, 



Personal Recollections. 69 

and his brother, John W. D., since citizens of 
Portland, Maine. Abiel went up one night 
before a Fourtli of July, and hung the 
national flag on the eagle ; at dajlight he 
discovered it was " Union down," and climbed 
up again to right it. A boy who thought 
that much of the old flag could not be driven 
into the rebel army, if he did have life and 
property at stake in Texas when the storm of 
•war burst over the South in 1861. Doric 
hall, as it is now called, then known merely 
as the '' Area," was used occasionally as a 
public assembly-room. There Daniel Web- 
ster once received a popular greeting, and so, 
I think, did Gen. Sam Houston, of Texas. 
The Seamen's Friend Society of ladies held 
sometimes a June fair there, in the hope of 
capturing mau}^ half dollars for their cause 
from rural legislators, — a hope which never 
had full fruition. 

The river and intervale were places of 
frequent resort, for Ave took delight in the 
stream, and in its green banks and sandy 
edges. In the summer vacation-days a whole 
afternoon was frequently given to the water, 
reserving only time enough to get our heads 
well dried before the anxious maternal inspec- 
tion at supper time. The west bank of the 
river for an eighth of a mile above the " Free 



70 Sixty Years hi Concord. 

Bridge" was the popular evening bathing- 
place for apprentices and mechanics, and a 
long line of young A polios could be found 
there from late afternoon until dark. The 
Avater was deep then, with no shoals or sand- 
bars, and there was good diving. Edward E. 
Sturtevant, tlien a printer in Concord, after- 
ward a major of the Fifth New Hampshire, 
" New Hampshire's first volunteer," killed 
in the assault of the Army of the Potomac on 
the heiglits of Fredericksburg in December, 
1862, was accustomed to go under with a 
cigar, lighted end inside his mouth, come up 
a long way oft", and puff the smoke in a 
leisurely swim to the further shore. My 
comrade, George Gault, could go off a spring 
board with the grace of a professional ath- 
lete, turn a beautiful curve, and plunge into 
the water straight as a pickerel, leaving 
liardly a ripple behind. 

The Merrimack to our boyish eyes looked 
broader and grander than it is : to me it has 
always been the ]nost delightful of rivers. . 
David A. Wasson, a native of Maine, where 
rivers abound, says in one of his essays, — 
" Sweet old Merrimack stream, the river that 
we would not wish to forget, even by the 
waters of the river of life I " It was our 
common fishing-water, too, and seldom it was 



Personal Recollections. 71 

that we came home empty-handed. We 
caught perch, chub, roach, horn-pout, and 
pickereh Although the small streams in our 
county, all tributary to the Merrimack, are 
among the best natural trout waters, I never 
saw but one trout caught in the river itself ; 
that one was taken between the moutli of 
Turkey river and Garvin's falls. 1 have 
lieard of an occasional one in Turkey pond. 
I took a pickerel which weighed over three 
pounds at the outlet of Fort Eddy, when I 
was but just strong enough to land him,'^nd 
one of the South End boys, Theodore French, 
caught one twice as large not far above the 
lower bridge. Salmon were then taken at 
Garvin's falls, before the great dam was built 
at Lawrence in 1848. The last of those 
lordly lish I heard of in the river, before that 
high dam was completed, were taken at Gar- 
vin's, and sold in Concord to Joseph A. 
Gilmore, who shared tliem with his frieQds. 
Between those two, and the fish now occa- 
sionally seen in the attempted restocking of 
the stream, was a long interregnum. 

Just below the Lawrence dam, in 1851-'51, 
I had opportunity to see many sliad taken in 
a seine, and once was looking on when a 
great sturgeon escaped by leaping over the 
edge of the net as it was drawn to shore. 



72 Sixty Years in Concord. 

There was some navigation on the river. 
Canal-boats came np from Boston (by use of 
the Middlesex canal as far as Lowell) from 
1816 to 1843, having one landing just below 
the Pembroke bridge, and another near the 
Federal brido'e. One of the means to enter- 
tain a president in Concord in 1817 was to 
give him a boat excursion down tlie river to 
Garvin's falls. There was an odor like that 
of city wharves about the boating company's 
landings ; — bales and boxes of goods, bundles 
of iron, and hogsheads of molasses were vis- 
ible. One navy-yard where canal-boats were 
constructed was oji the north side of Centi'e, 
between INIain and State streets ; another was 
on Hall street. When ready for the Avater 
the boats were liauled away and launched, 
with some frolic and possibly some tippling. 
The granite for Quinc}^ market in Boston was 
boated down the river. A small steamboat 
had come up from the "Hub" as long ago as 
1819. On at least one occasion of high 
water, boats landed hogslieads of molasses at 
the distillery, which stood where Stratton & 
Co. now dispense "Alpine Daisy " flour. 

Rafts of timber from forests north of Con- 
cord were taken down the river, some of 
them with rustic huts thereon, whence came 
the glow of firelight, and glimpses of a cook 



Personal Recollections. T3 

preparing the raftsmen's supper. Some of 
this timber was wrought on tlie lower Merri- 
mack into the staunch frames of ships known 
all around the world. It seemed to us, as we 
sat in the clover and buttercups by the river, 
where the bob-o-links sung and the bees gath- 
ered honey, as if the adjacent north region 
whence the Avater came, witli now and then 
a boat or a raft on its bosom, was a vast mys- 
terious country, indefinite and unknown. " 

An English artist named Harvey, an asso- 
ciate of the National Academy, once made a 
picture of Concord from the east bank of the 
river above the Pembroke or lower bridge, in 
the foreground of which was almost exactly 
what I have attempted to describe. Litho- 
graphic copies of this picture were printed in 
London. I know of but three in existence 
now ; — one is the property of Mr. John M. 
Hill, another is owned by a bookseller in 
Bristol, England, and the third is in a Con- 
cord barber shop. 

Along the river bank were groups of maple 
trees, from which we drew sap in sunny spring 
clays for boiling down to sugar in the even- 
ing. On one of these sap-gathering play- 
days, at high spring tide, we lost an axe 
belonging to Mr. John Stickney, and it lay 
quietly at the bottom of the stream until 



74 Sii'ty Years in Concord. 

summer drought enabled us to recover it, to 
our great satisfaction, before its loss ^had 
been discovered, and not much the worse for 
its watery bnrial. 

The '^ Paradise woods," a forest of grand 
old pines, which stood opposite the site of 
the present Blossom Hill Cemetery, was in 
the spring a place abounding with Mayflow- 
ers and evergi'een. The ground in these 
woods became dry as soon as the snow was 
gone, and there was a solemn, attractive 
grandeur in the stately pines. When those 
trees were swept away by the axe, desolation 
reigned in their stead. There was also a 
beautiful grove of large trees, mainly elms, 
on the "fan" north of Fort Eddy, to which 
we went on hot summer afternoons to enjoy 
the cool breeze, the waving grass, and the 
songs of birds wdiich nested there in great 
numbers. Their nests were never molested 
by us. Toward autumn we roasted corn and 
potatoes, and sat down to pastoral feasts, 
where good digestion waited on appetite, and 
health on both. There were also on the 
meadows many staunch old hickory trees, at 
which we kept busy in autumn holidays lay- 
ing by a store of nuts for winter, there being- 
considerable rivalry to determine who could 
gather most. 



Personal Recollections. 75 

The annual militia trainings in May and 
the autumnal reo'imental musterinofs were 
interesting and picturesque events, wliich 
assembled the Concord Light Infantry (dat- 
ing back to at least 1797), Capt. David 
Neal, with blue coats, white trousers, and 
waving plumes of red and white ; the 
Columbian Artillery, Capt. Thomas P. Hill, 
clad in patriotic blue ; the Troop, with red 
coats and horses of every color, led by the 
redoubtable Cotton K. Simpson ; and the 
Borough Riflemen, Capt. Timotliy Dow, 
with a front rank of pioneers dressed like 
Indians and bearing big tomahawks. Noth- 
ing precisely like these is likely ever to go 
through our streets again. The more 
numerous train-bands without uniforms, 
but provided with muskets, cartridge boxes, 
knapsacks, and of course canteens, obtained 
in some way the rather queer name of 
"string-beans." 

Those militiamen, sucli as were left of 
them, made their last collective appearance 
in 1861, as Home Guards, " not to leave town 
except in case of an invasion," with Josiah 
Stevens, captain, Asa McFarland, first lieu- 
tenant, and Hamilton E. Perkins, first 
sergeant. 

Coasting could be done, in its season, on 



76 Sixty Years in Concord. 

any street in town which had sufficient slope: 
no policeman would gather us in. T have 
slid from a point on Main street near Bridge 
street, northward as far as Montgomery 
street, where there is very little declivity 
now ; and Bridge street (before the building 
of the railroad bridge) and Ferry street were 
very lively coasting-places, railroad trains 
passing so infrequently that they did not 
interrupt the sport to a serious or very dan- 
gerous degree. I once saw a big sleigh- 
bottom, with a dozen boys thereon, come 
flying down Montgomery street, and at the 
junction with Main take a countryman's 
horse out of a passing sleigh and land the 
animal clear over on the east sidewalk, the 
boys rolling off barely in season to escape 
harm. This affair was treated as a merely 
funny adventure, — no fuss, no writs, no law- 
yers, and no half column in a daily news- 
paper. Tliere may have been some anxious 
hearts for a few hours. I know I saw Andrew 
Chadbourne roll off the flying sled as he saw 
what must occur, run into his father's house, 
and come out after a while to ask the artless 
victim of the mischance how it all happened. 
Some of us were coasting on Ferry street 
on an afternoon holiday, probably in 1843, 
when looking toward the sun we espied the 



Personal Recollections. 77 

comet of that year. This was before the 
strange visitor had begun to be talked about 
or discussed in such newspapers as came to 
our notice. 

A gun is usually a coveted possession, and 
there was in our house a weapon which my 
father called a fowling-piece, bought when 
he was an apprentice in Boston, in 1822, 
from a store in Dock square, at a cost of ten 
dollars. It was obtained for use in militia 
trainbands, but he did some shooting with it 
on Boston common. When it reached m}^ 
hands it was very long, although some inches 
of its original proportions had been shorn off 
at the muzzle end. The calibre, too, was 
large ; so it took a sight of ammunition to 
load it, and when discharged, it scattered 
shot widely and none too effectively. There 
was a small flaw in the barrel, a few inches 
from the lock, which was the cause of some 
solicitude, but the arm proved to be safe for 
the gunner, and not very dangerous to any- 
thing else. 

George Gault had the use of a similar gun 
from iiis uncle, John Stickney. It was at 
least as old as mine, much homelier, with a 
curious bend in its barrel, a depression be- 
tween lock and muzzle very evident to the 
eye when the piece was sighted, probably a 



78 Sixty Years in Concord. 

caprice of the gun-maker with an intent to 
give it long range. Its shooting qualities 
were neither better nor worse than those of 
my weapon. 

Much time was spent by us in the forests 
and fields. The pursuit of fish and game im- 
parted liabits of observation which were 
useful in after life. In tlie right season there 
was almost always some reward for our hunt 
to be found within easy distance. About the 
year 1850 I saw a sportsman come out of a 
cornfield which bordered on Ferry street, 
half way from Main street to Fort Eddy, 
carrying twenty or thirty snipe and wood- 
cook. He was shooting in a wajr which 1 
had never seen before, with a handsome 
double gun and a fine setter dog. We got 
ruffed grouse within a mile of the state-house ; 
one I discovered in my father's garden. 
Many a woodcock have I seen flying across 
Main street in the early evening, and wild 
pigeons were sometimes numerous in the 
vicinity. The last mentioned birds I occa- 
sionally shot from trees on Main street, also 
in my father's garden, but oftener on the 
meadows and Pine plain. Once I secured a 
dozen pigeons, only one at a shot, about a 
mile from the city hall ; but this was not 
done with the old fowling-piece before men- 



Personal Recollections. 79 

tioned. It was not so far as that from the 
city hall that I came near getting a wild 
goose. The great bird was hit, and a little 
more discretion on my part would have 
secured it, but I lost my head with excite- 
ment, and it escaped into the pine woods on 
the plain. We were often as short of ammu- 
nition as was the Continental army, and such 
old iron and lead as could be found were bar- 
tered for powder and shot. As our shooting- 
was not altogether approved in certain mater- 
nal quarters, it was hard to obtain mone}' 
from the home government. 

There were in Avinter some excellent skat- 
ing-places on the intervale. The meadows 
not being then well drained, we could often 
skate from where are now the sheds of the 
New England Granite Company southward 
to the frog-pond below the Concord & Mon- 
treal engine-house. During winter freshets 
water sometimes covered the intervale, ice 
formed, and a grand skating park resulted. 
Occasionally we found smooth ice on the 
river, and went flying as far up as Sewall's 
Falls. My first skates were fished out of 
a box of half-forgotten rubbish, and rigged 
with leather thongs. When discovered, 
brown rust lay thickly on the blades, but 
hard work w4th brick .dust and an old file 



80 Sixty Years i)i Concord. 

took that off. The skate of that day had a 
longitudinal groove in the edge which came 
in contact with the ice, and a good pair, with 
curves in front ending in a brass acorn over 
the toe, cost a dollar and a quarter. George 
Gault's brother William sent him a pair 
from New York which had some elegant 
double curves at the toe, two grooves in the 
cutting edge of the blades, and other devices 
which stirred our souls, and caused us to 
regard him as a most fortunate being. We 
called those " real Plolland skates." 

Christie Renton, daughter of Dr. Peter 
Renton, was, I think, the first girl wlio did 
any skating in Concord. She learned on 
Horseshoe pond, with the assistance of her 
brother John, wlio was a powerful skater. 
There was a story current among us that 
John once started at the upper end of the 
Horseshoe, and came down to the bridge with 
so mucli headway that he jumped clear over 
it, that structure being then nearer the water 
level than it is now. Tliis was as famous a 
story among us as is that of "Alvarado's 
leap *' in Mexican history. The Northern 
Railroad embankment was not constructed 
then, and there was a clear run from the head 
of the pond. 



VI. 

Not very many books were accessible in 
the earlier part of the period which I have 
tried to describe. My list included some 
volumes of the Penny 3Iagazine and Merri/'s 
Museum^ Banyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," 
Harper's Family Library, Goldsmith's "Ani- 
mated Nature," " The Scottish Chiefs," 
" Thaddeus of Warsaw," the Rollo Books, a 
few other of Jacob Abbot's stories, and a 
little later a real treasure-house, — Chambers' 
Miscellany. " Robinson Crusoe " was read 
and re-read. Josephus's History was among 
the possessions of the Stickney tavern. 
Some boy friend had the "Swiss Family Rob- 
inson " and the " Arabian Nights." If there 
had been a place like the Concord City 
Library, it would have been a great satisfac- 
tion. Maria Edgeworth's novels were in our 
house, but not much read. Dickens's novels 
were the first I went through Avith real satis- 
faction. The "Pickwick Papers" I tried to 
read, but could not get interested in them, — 
a confession I never dared make, until I heard 
Hon. Asa Fowler, whose love for books no 
one would question, say the same for himself. 



82 Sixty Years in Coicord. 

Three weekly newspapers came to our home, 
the Congregational Journal^ The New Hamp- 
shire Statesman}., and the Boston Journal. 
After m}^ father became the publislier of the 
Statesman the second time, in 1851, news- 
paper reading became too abundant. 

Mention has been made of a few of many 
taverns on Main street: The Washinpton 

o 

House, Merrimack House, Stickney tavern, 
American House (not the existing one of 
that name). Eagle Coffee House, Columbian 
hotel, Phoenix hotel. Elm House, and Carter's 
tavern. Although strong liquors had ceased 
to be considered good drinks, bar-rooms were 
not banislied from sight, nor driven to by- 
places and holes in the ground. I was not 
allowed to visit taverns or drinking- places, 
but was induced once to go to '^ Sam Clark's," 
a semi-respectable retreat within a liouse then 
standing where is now the Phoenix block, to 
get a first acquaintance with oysters. Will- 
iam Chadbourne and myself invested all our 
money in a savory stew, and divided the pro- 
ceeds of the investment. Its cost was nine- 
pence in Spanish coins, equivalent to twelve 
and a half cents. Most of the silver coins in 
circulation were Spanish or Mexican,* many 

*In 1801 Thomas Jefferson and John Randolph attempted 
to abolish ihe national mint and do away with the United 
States coins, which they styled an " insign.a of sovereignty," 
or an assertion that the Nation is superior to the Slate. 



Personal ReeoUections. 83 

of them so worn that the mint stamp was 
indistinct. Shop and store prices were not 
stated in our national money, but were " four- 
pence ha'penny " (six and a quarter cents), 
'-'• two and thre'pence" (thirty-seven and a half 
cents), and so forth. Bank notes issued 
in one state might not be current in 
another. Counterfeits were so common that 
every merchant kept a "detector" near his 
elbow, and |)aper currency was never satisfac- 
tory until the establishment of the national 
banking system in 1863-'64. 

There being then no local daily newspaper, 
the taverns were places of common resort to 
tell and hear town news. The old Phoenix, 
opened in Januarj^, 1819, was a rendezvous 
of my father's, and a most respectable cir- 
cle of Whig gentlemen could be found there 
any cool evening, gathered around tlie cheer- 
ful fire in the bar-room, an apartment about 
twenty by thirty feet in area. The adorn- 
ments of the room were long rows of sus- 
pended crook-necked squashes, which dis- 
appeared gradually before the approach of 
spring, and a few pictures, " Susannah and 
the Elders" being as conspicuous as any of 
the collection. Major Ephraim Hutchins 
was the landlord, and Mr. Solon Stanley 
officiated behind the counter. After the brief 



84 Sixty Years in Concord. 

reign of William Dole, one was succeeded 
by Mr. A. C. Pierce, and the other by Mr. 
S. H. Dumas, who has been for many years 
landlord of the Boar's Head at Hampton. 
The Plioenix was Daniel Webster's abiding- 
place when he came to Concord, and Gen. 
Winfield Scott was there when on his way to 
Maine at the period of the northeastern 
boundary dispute, in 1841-'42, with England. 

When I had attained wisdom enough to be 
permitted to go occasionally to the Plioenix, 
Hamilton Hutchius, Lewis Downing, Sam- 
uel Coffin, J. Stephens Abbot, Ira Perley, 
Woodbridge Odliu, Charles Smart, Joseph 
G. Wyatt, Joseph A. Gil more, Abel B. Holt, 
and others, were in more or less regular 
attendance. There was no drinking ; it was 
mere sociability and friendliness. Democrats 
holding similar rank in town resorted to the 
American House, corner of Main and Park 
streets. 

Midway between these two hostelries was 
the Eagle Coffee House, a most comfortable 
tavern, built in 1827 by Mr. William Rich- 
ardson, who came from Methuen, Mass. 
Until then its site had been an apple orchard. 
Here was a large tavern hall called the 
Grecian, where on tlie wall back of the ros- 
trum was what purported to be a picture of 



Personal Recollections. 85 

the Battle of New Orleans. Here Daniel 
Webster once received his friends, but the 
floor weakened under the weight of a numer- 
ous assembly, and tliere was a sudden 
adjournment to the state-house. 

At the gatherings which I have mentioned 
at the Phoenix, Mr. Odlin had always a fund 
of wit to distribute. Ira Perley, a lawyer of 
excellent attainments, highly respected by 
his fellow-citizens, an oracle in the Whig- 
circle, was considered a possible governor or 
member of congress. Altliough afterward 
chief-justice of New Hampshire, he never 
had the nicest judicial temper, — was fitful, 
moody, and, in conversation at least, occa- 
sionally unjust. 

Mr. Wyatt, being a daily messenger of the 
express to Boston, was an important acquisi- 
tion to the circle. He could often tell of 
occurrences in that city before they were set 
forth in the newspapers. The murder of Dr. 
George Parkman in Boston, in November, 
1849, made a great impression on the public 
mind ; and happening to hear from Major 
Wyatt tliat tlie murderer had been discovered 
and was a professor in Harvard Medical Col- 
lege, I went home with the intelligence, to 
be told by my father that it was preposterous 
nonsense : still it turned out to be truth, and 



86 Sixty Years in Concord. 

my father read, in the Vale of Chamouni, in 
September, 1850, an account of Dr. John W. 
Webster's execution on the gallows in pen- 
alty for the crime. The interior of Mr. 
Wyatt's home Avas enlivened with portraits 
of American statesmen. If the men them- 
selves lost Mr. Wyatt's esteem, it was his 
custom to turn the portraits head downward 
on the walls, permanently or temporarily as 
they might deserve. During periods of more 
than usual political interest, the Phoenix 
loungers overflowed into the south parlor, on 
tlie same floor as the bar-room, and filled the 
broad front piazza. These people at the 
Phoenix were great admirers of Henry Clay, 
and took that statesman's failure in the presi- 
dential election of 1844 very much to heart, 
as tliey would surely have done the defeat 
of Webster if the latter had been the can- 
didate. 

The first time my eyes beheld Daniel Web- 
ster I was a school-boy in the street, ignorant 
that he was in town, but it needed no herald 
to tell me who he was ; no other man could 
have that imperial presence. My awe was 
equal to that of the navvy, who pointed at 
him in a Liverpool street, in 1839, and ex- 
claimed, *' There goes a king." 

Nearly half a century ago I was told that 



Personal RecoUections. 87 

my grandfather was the officiating clergyman 
at the marriage of Daniel Webster and Grace 
Fletcher. Lately I have been looking about 
to see if any corroborative evidence is on 
record. 

Miss Grace Fletcher was the daughter of a 
Congregational clergyman of Hopkinton, but 
at the date of her marriage her father was 
dead, her mother probably re-married, and she 
herself living with a married sister in Salis- 
bury. 

My grandfather was a tutor in Dartmouth 
college when Mr. Webster was the foremost 
student there, and they were probably known 
then to one another. He was also, as I have 
before stated, a trustee of the college during 
the controversy which resulted in the famous 
Dartmouth College case in the United States 
supreme court, where Mr. Webster made the 
argument, which brought tears to the eyes of 
the great Virginian, Chief Justice John Mar- 
shall, and wrung a favorable decison from a 
reluctant court. 

There was a color of probability to what 
I was told, and a search for the truth has 
amused me, but at the church in Salisbury 
this marriage is recorded under the head of 
''Marriages by Mr. Worcester," a long record 
running from Nov. 12, 1791, to Nov. 28, 1830, 



88 Sixty Years in Concord. 

when Rev. Thomas Worcester was pastor of 
the Salisbury church, and I suppose it may 
have become the habit to write down any 
marriage wliich occurred, without careful 
regard to the heading. Mr. Webster himself 
seems to have made an error as to the date of 
his marriage. In his brief autobiography, 
written in 1829, he says, '' June 24, 1808, I 
was married." To be sure tliis does not say 
exactly that such was the date of his wed- 
ding, but, standing as it does in a sentence by 
itself, that is what it has been taken to mean. 
If that is what it means, it was clearly a slip 
of memory. 

On the records of the town of Salisbury is 
the following: ''Daniel Webster, Esq., of 
Portsmoutli, and Miss Grace Fletcher, of 
Hopkinton, N. H., were married May 29, 
1808." This does not give the name of the 
clergyman. 

At the date of his marriage, Mr. Webster 
lived in Portsmoutli. In the Portsmouth 
Oracle of June 11, 1808, is this: "Married 
in Salisbury, Daniel Webster, Esq., of this 
town, to Miss Grace Fletcher." This gives 
neither date nor clergyman. 

The Concord Gazette of Tuesday, May 31, 
1808, does a little better. It says, — '' Mar- 
ried in Salisburv, on Sunday evening last. 



Personal Recollections. 89 

Daniel Webster, Esq., of Portsmouth, to Miss 
Grace Fletcher." 

This Concord G-azette of Tuesday probably 
went to press Monday evening, as was the cus- 
tom of that day, and I have wondered if my 
grandfather preaclied in Salisburj^ Sunday, 
May 29, 1808, married the young people, who 
were probably both known to him, drove home 
to Concord Monday morning, and attended 
to the publication of that notice promptly in 
the Gazette., which was then printed by his 
friend J. C. Tuttle. To add to the possi- 
bility of my grandfather's having been in the 
pulpit at Salisbury on the above named Sun- 
day is the fact that he was to preacli the 
election sermon in Concord on the follow- 
ing Thursday. Bouton's History of Concord 
has a partial list of the preachers of election 
sermons, in which another name than my 
grandfather's appears for 1808, but this is 
assuredly an error. The same Gazette which 
printed the notice of marriage saj^s, — " The 
Rev. Mr. McFarland, of this town, is ap- 
pointed to deliver the Election sermon on 
Thursday." I have been inclined to think 
that tlie preparation of that sermon (copies 
of which are in existence) for the opening of 
the legislature so far occupied his time the 
week before the marriage that it might have 



90 Sixty Years in Concord. 

been very conveiiient for him to exchange 
with Papson Worcester of Salisbury on the 
Sunday of the wedding. But after all, I 
have found no proof that Dr. McFarland 
officiated at the espousals. 

The annual town elections were opened on 
the morning of the second Tuesday of March, 
and continued down to Friday or Saturday ; 
at least once the meeting held into a second 
week. x\s the elections were at the town 
hall nearly opposite my home, and as our 
friends were active Whigs, and often beaten, 
those great assemblies were interesting, 
although mostly unsatisfactory. Sometimes 
there were discussions on town affairs be- 
tween men like Richard Bradley, Joseph Low, 
Samael Coffin, and James Peverly, on one 
side, and Isaac Hill, Franklin Pierce, Robert 
Davis, and Joseph Robinson, on the opposite 
side. . There were violent personal hatreds 
between Whigs and Democrats. Ex-Gov. 
Hill of the Patriot^ a red-hot Jackson man, 
and in fact one of what is called in history 
" Jackson's Kitchen Cabinet," used a good 
many lively nouns and adjectives in political 
newspaper attacks. These ways became the 
ways of partisans, and there was sometimes 
hot and fretful talk on the town-hall floor. 
General Pierce was too ambitious to brook 



Personal Recollections. 91 

control, so he rebelled a little against the 
authority of the political leader, but kept 
inside the party lines. Within those lines 
there was an exhilarating- scrimmage on Sat- 
urday, Feb. 18, 1842. Two factions of the 
Democracy, "radicals" and "conservatives," 
striving for control of a caucus in the town 
hall, came in collision, seats and desks were 
smashed, wigs flew in the dusty air, and 
bloody noses were seen on most respectable 
faces. There was a great uproar and a clat- 
ter of flying feet, combatants chasing their 
foes as far down as Centre street. Two 
Patriot newspapers were then seeking party 
favor, the Neiv Hampsliire Patriot and HilVs 
JVew Hampshire Patriot. 

The old town hall was provided with a 
speakers' platform at the west end, opposite 
the entrance, and a broad open floor led from 
entrance to platform. Rows of benches were 
on eitlier side, facing not toward the plat- 
form, but at right angles to it, as in the 
British house of commons. On the south 
wall hung a large clock-case with a dial, but 
it was a hollow sham, into which a boy could 
climb. For a considerable period the even- 
ing meetings of the First church were held 
in the old hall, and so afterward were the 
services of the early St. Paul's Episcopal 
church. 



92 Sixty Years in Concord. 

Town-meeting week was in some sense a 
town lioliday, — a time for cakes and ale, gin- 
gerbread and molasses cand}'. Peddlers of 
various notions, and hucksters' bootlis, were 
numerous in the trampled snow of the town- 
house liill. People from outlying districts, 
on the borders of Boscawen, Bow, Canter- 
bury, Chichester, Dunbarton, Loudon, and 
Pembroke (a cluster of dignified English 
names), came in the morning, some of them 
to stay all clay and go home in the evening 
with the smell of rum in their garments. 

In the choice of moderator no check-list 
Avas used. The chairman of the selectmen, 
standing at the handle of the big front door, 
received the ballots of the voters, who, to 
prevent double voting, entered and remained 
within the hall perhaps a weary half day, un- 
til the polls were closed, although there was 
an occasional escape through some neglected 
window. In 1843 Joseph Low, a Whig, was 
elected moderator in opposition to Franklin 
Pierce, Democrat. 

There were usually ballots of three parties, 
— Free Soil, Whig, and Democratic, — and 
sometimes those of bolters or factions got 
into the field. George Gault and I once 
carved in pine wood two droll devices for 
headings, and printed tickets at my father's 



Personal Recollections. 93 

press, designed to ridicule certain local poli- 
ticians, a South End gentleman being the 
especial object of our displeasure. Taking 
exceptional care in the printing, we carried 
our productions to the town hall, but were 
afraid to distribute them. Concealing tlie 
packages imperfectly in the crevices of a 
woodpile on Mr. John Stick ney's estate, we 
went away for deliberation, and on our return 
were astonished to find a big, sober-faced man 
selling our tickets for ten cents each, in a 
very active market. Then we realized that 

" Tliere is a tide in tlie affairs of men. 
Which, taken at tlie tlooci, leads on to fortune," 

for we had no more than ten cents each to 
spend in all town-meeting week. 

This great annual meeting brought all the- 
queer local characters to tlie front — among 
others, Benjamin Green, a half-crazy English- 
man, with perhaps a broadside of original 
doggerel verses ; John Virgin, a cranky pen- 
sioner of the War of 1812, who served under 
General Harrison at Tippecanoe, vehement 
and sometimes eloquent in praise of his old 
commander and Henry Clay ; and a man 
from "The Borough," who went striding 
about, Avith a pole held at his shoulder as if 
it were a gun, sliouting " Guards to the right ! 
Dragoons to the left! Advance the centre!" 



94 Sixty Years in Concord. 

Such queer people seem to be extinct. 
" Our Decided Characters," who were por- 
trayed by Mr. Charles L. Wheeler in a Con- 
cord Director}^ published by him in 1853, 
have apparently left no successors. 

As long as annual sessions of the state 
legislature began in June, so long was Inaug- 
uration or Election chw the best holiday of 
the year. It came in the most delightful of 
all the months, and the wliole town was made 
ready for it. Contracts for house building 
and painting were timed to be completed 
before that day, and lawns were raked of 
their last dead leaf. New clothes were 
brought home from the tailors, and new bon- 
nets had their first outing. Out-of-town visi- 
tors swarmed in, arrayed in their best. The 
military turned out, — infantry, artillerj', and 
(in 1860-'65) the Governor's Horse Guards. 
This was a brave show. To be sure the 
Horse Guards had their difficulties ; what 
military company does not? Their untrained 
horses could never qaite comprehend why 
sabres should be drawn, and the flash of steel 
about their heads scattered the whole caval- 
cade into separate units. Then there was 
one occasion wlien '' bold John Barleycorn " 
got in his work. A bustling officer of the 
guards mounted his horse at the Phoenix, 



Personal Recollectio7is. 95 

before the hour for parade, and made a head- 
long dash down Main street, slashing with 
his sabre right and left at imaginary foes, 
and putting to desperate flight a demure cow 
at the South End. This achievement being 
satisfactorily accomplished, he came back up 
the street at like pace, and landed prone in 
the dust in front of Phcenix block, exclaim- 
ing, '• The. horse was not to blame I" Thence 
he was borne off to bed, and the horse, which 
had stood quietly by the fallen rider, was led 
away to the stable. Such scenes did not 
occur on Main street every da}^, or every 
Election day either. The career of that 
Horse Guard was over. 

" His banner led the spears no more amidst the hills 
of Spain." 

If any person of the olden time had fore- 
told the present biennial winter sessions, 
without music and banners, fakirs and magi- 
cians, lemonade and 'lection cake, he would 
have been regarded as a hopeless lunatic. 

There was work as well as play for the 
boys of 3845, — work in the garden, hoeing 
and digging, fruit-gathering, wood to saw, 
split, and pile, and paths to shovel in winter. 
No grocer of that day delivered by wagon 
the goods sold to his customers. He surren- 



96 Sixty Years in Concord. 

dered commodities at his store, and the pur- 
chaser got them home as he best could. In 
such service my wheelbarrow was useful, 
and my father would dispatch me to the 
grocery, usually that of Deacon Nathaniel 
Evans, which stood wdiere is now the Chase 
building, with a written order for whatever 
was wanted, drg,wn in his strong, character- 
istic liand, which ran usually in this way: 

Mr. Evans : Please deliver to this lad the 
following [here was a list of articles], and 
charge the same to the account of 

Your obt. servant, 
Asa McFakland. 

all as carefully capitalized and punctuated 
as if it had been a paper of the State De- 
partment. This was rather serious business 
when tlie supply of wheat flour and sugar 
and molasses needed replenishing, but there 
were neither delays nor accidents on the line. 
The streets and walks were not crowded with 
traffic. 

I was often at the printing-otRce, then in 
the third story of Stickney's building, which 
faced the state-house park, to render such 
service as was within my strength and ca- 
pacit}^ First-class printers made constant 
use of the dry-press for restoring finish to 
paper which had been wet before printing. 



Personal Recollections. 97 

and indented bj the impression of type. The 
practice of wetting paper was then universaL 
To restore the printed slieets to their original 
finish, they were phiced between hard, 
smoothly finished pasteboards, and subjected 
to great pressure in powerful screw^ presses. 
It seems as if I must have '' put in " and 
" taken out " in those years enougli sheets of 
paper to cover the whole territory of Concord 
with literature. It was monotonous toil, be- 
gun when I was too small to stand in one 
place and reach to the right or left for sheets, 
so it was necessjuy to wallv to and fro in front 
of the bench, like the swing of a pendulum. 

There was a story current among the boys 
tliat Dr. Timoth}^ Haynes liad a dissecting- 
room in the attic at the south end of the 
Stickney building. Two or three of us went 
to the roof above the printing-office, ran 
along tlie ridge, ventured down a convenient 
scuttle, and found tliere a human body on a 
table covered witli canvas. It Avas a grue- 
some sight, and we stood not long upon the 
ordei' of our going. 

Among my father's customers were the 
Canterbury Society of Shakers, and David 
Parker, chief of that society, persuaded him 
to have a dry-press of a new pattern built by 
them at Canterbury. It was not scientif- 

7 



98 Sixty Years in Ctnicord. 

ically designed in some of its proportions, 
and proved to be too weak to resist its own 
power. 

Tlie Sliakers essayed to do some of tlieii- 
own printing, and I heard my father and 
David Parker, or Thomas Corbett, discnss- 
ing the workmanship of a doctrinal book 
wiiich they had issued. My father had 
observed errors in it, altliough the Shakers 
claimed that the printing liad l)een done 
under inspiration from Heaven, and that 
after first proofs liad been corrected b}" 
human liands, revised proofs had been taken, 
left in a convenient place, and the angel 
Gabriel summoned Ijy trumpet to come down 
and give the pages a final critical reading. 

Among printing-house workmen and 
apprentices, I remember well the " old vet- 
eran '* William Hoit : '' Capt. Sam " A. Mor- 
rison, who not infrequently took a drop too 
much, and went about town brandishing a 
cane at invisible tormentors, or in the office 
mio'ht flino' missiles at an imaoinary imp 
lurkino- iu some dim corner: Edmund S. 
Chadwick, Ervin B. Tripp, Frank Barr, 
George O. Odlin, Rufus Lane, Edward E. 
Sturtevant, George E. Jenks, Elijah Clough, 
Edward A. Jenks, Andre av J. Gilmore, wlio v^ 
served in the navy during tlie CiA'il War, ^ 



Personal RecoUectioiis. 99 

Edward O. Witliingtoii, and Heiuy W. 
Phelps, who became interested' in a news- 
paper at St. Paul, Minn., but came home to 
Hopkinton to die in October, 1857. Then 
there was "Archibald," a guzzling Scotcli 
compositor, who tramped around a long cir- 
cuit of towns, making his appearance here 
irregularly, and remaining so long as he did 
not get intolerabl}^ drunk. 

Among persons of an earlier daj^, all now 
dead, who became conspicuous in newspaper 
undertakings and otlierwise, whom local 
associations would indicate for mention here, 
are Nathaniel H. Carter, editor of the JVetv 
York Statesman^ born near the banks of Tur- 
key river, which he celebrated in the poem 
" To my Native Stream ; " George Kent, for 
five years prior to 1831 editor of our States- 
man^ afterward consul of the United States at 
Valencia, Spain; George J. L. Colb}', in 1844 
editor of the People's Advocate in Concord, 
many years editor of the Neichiiryport Her- 
ald', Paul Morrill, once a citizen here, one 
of the founders of the Alta California^ San 
Francisco ; and Jacob H. Ela, an all around 
man on several papers, afterward member of 
congress from the First New Hampsliire 
tS District. WillianrT. Porter and George Wil- 
* kins Kendall were employees of the States- 



100 Sixty Years in Concord. 

man and the Patriot ; — the former, known as 
" York's tall son," six feet four inches high, 
founded in 1831 the ^^f?6' York Spirit of the ' 
Times; and the other, in 1837, established 
the Retv Oi^leans Picaynne^ a great paper 
durino- the Mexican war, and since that 



event 



My father printed the New Hampshire 
court reports under some arrangement with 
Hon. Joel Parker, the chief justice. Printed 
but unbound sheets of such reports were 
kept for safe storage at a room on the sec- 
ond floor of the New Hampshire Historical 
Society's building; and 'many a trip to and 
from that place did I make with the wheel- 
barrow before mentioned, tugging up and 
dow^n those stairs loads of good law, now 
quoted in many courts wliere English is 
spoken. 

Great care was exercised in the printing of 
those reports, and as specimens of law print- 
ing, which has a style of its own, they will 
compare favorably with tlie reports of an}- 
state in the Union. Asa McFarland had an 
honest man's pride in his business, which he 
loved as a worthy art; and writing this re- 
minds me how troubled I was at being told 
by the Morril boys that their father, David 
L. Morril (who had been governor, and 



Personal MecoUections. 101 

wrote occasional prosy articles for the jSfafes- 
man over the signature of ••' Senex "), 
declared printing to be only a trade, and that 
my father ought not to mention it as an art. 
It seemed preposterous to me that any one 
could suppose my father to he mistaken 
about his own business : hence my chagrin. 
I should have been gratified could I have 
quoted the inscription from the facade of 
Lawrens Coster's house at Haarlem, placed 
there before 16ii8, or even shown them, in 
Worcester's Dictionary, the word jjy^inting 
defined as '-'• the act, the art^ or the practice 
of imprinting words on paper." 

There was nothing relating to the art of 
printing as practised in his day which my 
father did not understand, and in which he 
did not at times take part. He wrote readily, 
and could have produced a book, except 
bindinof, doino- all the work with his own 
hands. After he assumed, in 1851, the pub- 
lication and editorial care of the Statesman^ 
he did not oversee every detail of the estab- 
lishment, but the impress of liis care was on 
all the considerable productions of liis press. 

The printers' work most distasteful to me 
was the boiling of glue and molasses together 
for the composition of ink-rollers, and this 
performance seemed, singularly enougli, to 



102 Sixty Years in Concord. 

come very often on Saturday afternoons 
wlien there were school half-holidays. The 
boiling being done, the rollers were cast late 
in the day, and allowed to remain in the iron 
moulds until Monday morning, when they 
were taken out, and examined as carefully 
as is the cylinder of a steam engine in a. 
great foundry. Every printing-office then 
made its own rollers. 

But the youthful toil which caused me 
real distress was blowing the organ at the 
South church. Tlie daughter of one of our 
neighbors, being a pianist, was ambitious to 
play the organ, and wajited many hours of 
practice. Stimulated by promise of suitable 
compensation, all of my Saturday -afternoons 
for a whole summer were spent in the work 
of ^Eolus at that organ ; and beside losing- 
legitimate playtime, I was paid in nothing 
but charming smiles from tlie fair organist, — 
a coinaofe which I have since learned p-oes at 
its face value all around the world. 



VII. 

Charles Kingsley says, — '' There is no 
pleasure that I have ever experienced like a 
child's nudsumnier holiday. The time, I 
mean, when two or three of us used to go 
away up the brook, and take our dinners with 
us, and come home at niglit, tired, dirty, 
happ3', scratched beyond recognition, with a 
great nosegay, three little trout, and one 
shoe, the other having been used as a boat 
till it had gone down with all hands, out 
of sonnding." I have enjoyed that kind of 
pleasure — at least the fishing and out-door 
dinner — not only in childhood, Imt ever 
since. 

There were visits to Meredith Bridge and 
North Conway, where every stream had wary 
trout in it, whicli gave great satisfaction. 
Jacob Libby was a favorite stage-driver as 
far as Meredith Bridge, and Peter Hines 
thence to Conway. After the Concord Rail- 
road was opened, the start from Concord was 
so late that the latter portion of the drive 
was pushed far into, the night ; and being 
once the onl}^ passenger beyond Ossipee, I 



104 Sixty Years in Concord. 

AViis tliiimped about heavily ; — half asleep 
and "half awake, I was continually lying- 
down on the seat, tumbling off into the straw 
at the bottom of the coach, and hunting for 
my cap, which was forever getting lost in the 
blackness of space. 

Among the most delightful vacations which 
a boy could have were those at North Con- 
way, then a charming village in the moun- 
tains, without cars or caravansaries, or tourists 
with alpenstocks and plaid trousers. There 
was a daily mail stage thence to Concord, 
and one quiet country inn. My father's 
eldest sister, Susan, became in 1838 the wife 
of Gilbert McMillan, who owned and dwelt 
upon the best and most picturesque farm in 
the whole valley of the Saco. My uncle 
McMillan was a descendant of Andrew 
McMillan, who came to this country from 
Londonderry, Ireland, about 1754, served in 
the rangers with Capt. Jonathan Burbank 
and Major Robert Rogers, purchased two 
slaves, Caesar and Dinah, in 1767-68, and as 
early as 1775 was a prominent man in Con- 
cord, having a store on the northwest corner 
of Main and Pleasant streets. The wide and 
beautiful farm at Conway was a provincial 
grant to Andrew for military services in the 
Frencli-Canadian war. Tlie mansion was 



Personal Recollections. 105 

spacious, a good example of the New Eng- 
land farm-house, some rooms containing 
deep-backed settles fronting broad, generous 
fireplaces. The morning after the midnight 
arrival on nn* first visit, as I came down to 
breakfast, the household dog Kover came 
tearing up to greet me at the half-wa}^ land- 
ing on the stairs, and we formed a friendly 
alliance ^yhich lasted until his death, and was 
renewed with various successors that bore 
his name. 

Not far from the house, large barns shel- 
tered the necessary horses and a goodly herd 
of cattle. Behind the mansion were the 
Saco meadows, in front was Sunset hill. 
Away to the north, at the end of the Saco 
valley, was the sublime mountain range, of 
which ni}^ uncle said, in reply to my inquiry 
as I saw him lean daily on his cane and gaze 
northward longingly and earnestly, that it 
was as grand and beautiful to his vision as 
when his eyes first saw it. He was a Cliris- 
tian gentleman, quiet, patient, appreciative, 
fond of wit, going about his estate to super- 
intend its cultivation like an English country 
gentleman out of " Bracebridge Hall," and 
his wife was his perfect counterpart. Would 
that every New Hampshire farm were to-day 
in as honorable and delightful ownership. 



106 Sixty Years in Concord. 

Landscape painters visited Conway fre- 
quently, some of them not widely known, 
but Kensett and the Harts (James and Will- 
iam) were distinguished. I found one of 
the latter at work one moniino- near a turn 
in Artist's brook, on my uncle's meadow, 
painting a glorious picture of Pequaket 
mountain, with the brook, meadow, and an 
old scarred white birch in the foreground. 
There was an angry swarm of mosquitoes 
buzzing about his ears, and he might have 
resented my intrusion ; l)ut he did not, and 
was so kind as to invite me to see his collec- 
tion, and equally kind when I availed myself 
of the invitation. My uncle's eye was so 
trained by dwelling among and observing 
grand scenes of nature that he could estimate 
a painter's merits l)y one long look at the can- 
vas, and his comments on some of tlie efforts 
of struggling genius were highly amusing. 

During my first visit to North Conway, I 
l)ecame so attached to tlie hills and valleys, 
my uncle and aunt, the birds and squirrels, 
the dog Rover and the horse Charlie, that 
I was loath to heed a summons to return, 
and my mother feared that my love for home 
was permanently broken. On a later visit, in 
1850, my friend Robert A. Hutchins was with 
me. Both were welcome to tlie boundless 



Personal Recollections. 107 

hospitalities of the farm. We walked from 
North Conway to the mountains, going on 
the first day as far as Ethan Crawford's. 
Next day we trudged up through the Great 
Notch, dined at Tliomas Crawford's, the 
original Notch House (built in 1828, burned 
in 1854), and returned in the evening to 
Ethan's. The Saco river swarmed with trout. 
We took enough in a half liour to furnish 
the people at the hotel a good supper and 
breakfast. It was not a common affair for 
people to be making pedestrian journeys 
around the mountains, and Etlian Crawford 
did not know exactly what to tliink of us. 
At length he inquired about our connections 
in Concord, and being told, he said, " Boys, 
I know your fathers well. If you are walk- 
ing around these mountains because you are 
out of money, tell me, and I will lend you 
whatever you need." Of course \ye thanked 
the old gentleman for his kindness, told him 
we were walking for the fun of it, and better 
to enjoy the scenery, and returjied to Con- 
way by the way we had come, confessing to 
some fatigue from our fifty-mile tramp. 
On our way down tlie valley, the tiller of a 
small farm hailed us, and learning we were 
from Concord and knew relatives of his, in- 
sisted on our enterino- his cottao-e and shariup^ 

c3 O O 



108 Sixty Years in Concord. 

his liunible dinner, whicli I remember was salt 
codfish and potatoes, though trout were very 
abundant in a brook liurrying by liis door. 

My school-days came to a sudden and in- 
glorious end. My father had been wanting 
me to be a printer, but I had seen so much 
of the dark side of the '' art preservative of 
all arts " that I shrank from it, and he patient- 
ly let me have my own way. Therefore we 
were going along in 1848 in uncertainty as to 
what I should do, and he advised that I revisit 
school. Mr. Hall Roberts, who was then rather 
eccentric, had been, as before mentioned, a 
principal at the Bell school, but, in conse- 
quence of some disagreement with the school- 
committee, had left, and was teaching a class 
in the vestry of the Baptist church ; so to 
this latter place I repaired. The teacher 
inquired what I was to study, and I replied 
that I was to be guided by his judgment, 
whereupon he proposed delving further in 
the same old books. My mind was resolved : 
I went home and told my father that I was 
done going to such schools. Tliis from a. 
boy of seventeen probably amused him. 
'' Very well," said he, " you can come to 
work in the office this afternoon." I was 
ready when the hour struck, and for months 



Personal Recollections. 109 

and months inked book forms, standing be- 
hind a hand press, nsing a liandle and frame 
which carried double rollers, distributing iidv 
on the rollers by means of a wooden cylinder 
which in its turn was revolved by a crank. 
This was by no means easy. Edmund S. 
Chadwick and George E. Jenks were the 
pressmen with whom I toiled most. There 
were three hand presses, and a long-haired, 
ignorant fellow named John Powell was my 
illustrious rival at another press. At my 
press we were ambitious to do a large quan- 
tity of good work. A '' token " an hour was 
deemed a fair stint, but on a long job of way- 
bills for some railroad we struck them off at 
the rate of a token in forty minutes. This 
was done on a favorite press, which was 
about ruined in the great fire of 1851. 

In January, 1849, Mr. John F. Brown took 
me for a clerk in his bookstore, where I 
wanted to be for the sake of reading. This 
store was at the southeast corner of the state- 
house park, squarely in space now occupied 
by Capitol street where that street joins Main. 
It was the lineal descendant of a bookstore 
owned early in the century by Isaac and 
Walter R. Hill, later by Hill & Moore and 
Horatio Hill & Co., and the old sign, bearing 
a portrait of the philosopher, diplomatist. 



110 Sixty Yecos i)i Concord. 

and man of letters, Benjamin Franklin, 
painted by Marsliall, an artist of some celeb- 
rity, bad been over it since 1810 or 1811. 
Tlie wood-work and tlie orio-inal letterinof of 
tbis sign were done b}' William Low, of 
Low & Damon. A picture of tbe building, 
erected by John Leacb in 1827 for Isaac Hill, 
in wliicb tliis store was wben I came to know " 
it, constitutes tbe beading to tbe second page 
editorials of tbe Patriot of tbat day. Tbe 
building was burnt in April, 1864. 

My fatlier told me tbat bookselliug Avould 
not do for a permanent occupation ; but I did 
not take a long look abead, and tbougbt tbat 
an attractive store, full of books wliicb could 
be read in leisure bours, was a good enougli 
goal. M}' salary was to be $50 tbe first year. 
Mr. Brown was a good-tempered employer ; 
be never reprimanded me, and I served bim 
well. Tbere was an older clerk wben I 
began, but be did not stay. Wlien Mr. 
Brown went away to tbe great " trade sales " 
or book auctions in Boston and New York 
be left me alone, and I deposited our sales- 
money in tbe Mecbanicks bank on Park 
street, witb Mr. George Minot as casbier. 

Commercial travellers were not often seen 
tben, ])ut Messrs. Hogan & Tbompsou, of 
Pliiladelpbia, bad a salesman from wbom Mr. 



Personal Recollections. Ill 

Brown bouo-ht blank books and stationery 
when he came on semi-annnal visits to Con- 
cord. Six months' credit was allowed on 
these purchases. Almost all the first-rate 
writing-paper of that day came from England 
and France, tliat of Monier, a French maker, 
being preferred by Mr. Brown. He would 
hold a sheet up to the light and exhibit the 
water-mark with much apparent satisfaction. 
On Harper & Brothers' publications a dis- 
count of twenty per cent, "from retail prices 
was allowed to us. This disconnt was 
deemed too small, and was the cause of con- 
tinual growling among country bookseller^. 
Mr. Brown, who began bookselling in 
1836, was the publislier of Dudley Leavitt's 
Farmers' Almanac and of Brown's Pocket 
^Memorandum or diary, both of which had a 
large sale ; also of Tytler's Universal His- 
tory, printed from old plates, and Putnam d' 
Hodp^es' Grammar, whicli last was somewhat 
revolutionary in its rules, and did not go off 
very well. Mr. Putnam was Bev. John M., 
a Congregational clergyman in Dunbarton. 
I think Mr. Hodges was, or had been, a Bap- 
tist clergyman in the same town. T often 
heard those three interested persons wonder- 
ing why there was not more demand for 
their kind of grammar. Dudley Leavitt 



112 Sixty Years in Concord. 

then lived in Meredith, and the stag-e-drivers 
pointed out his house to passengers as tliat 
of a person of great renown. The copy for 
his almanac, for wliich Mr. Brown paid 1100 
a year, was then made ready for manj^ ensu- 
ing years. He had been ( 1818-'19 ) a teacher 
at the Bell school when my fatlier was one of 
his pupils. I remember him as a courtly man 
witli gentle manners. 

Among our book-buyers was Mr. Mason 
W. Tappan, who had a law office at Bradford. 
His practice was to go around the store b}' 
himself, select a good lot of books, and buj' 
them witliout haggling. His visits were fre- 
quent and welcome. No reader of this will 
need to be told tliat he Ijecame member of 
congress from our district, 1855-'61, and was 
colonel of the First New Hampshire regiment 
in the VVnr of the Rebellion. 

Ex-Governor Isaac Hill, Avhen at home from 
Washington, was frequently at our store, 
and seemed to enjoy conversation with Mr. 
Brown, who belonged to the same political 
party ; but the governor, as was his wont, did 
most of the talking. He had been a fierce 
opponent of Daniel Webster, attacking him 
politically and personally in the Patriot : 
but I remember one of those calls, which 
occurred probably in the winter of 1849-'50, 








The Franklin Bookstore in 1850, 
(From an old wood cut.) 



Personal Recollections. 113 

when Mr. Hill, just home from Washington, 
came in, and told Mr. Brown that he had 
met Mr. Webster, the old resentments had 
been forgotten, they had enjoyed a most 
agreeable interview, talked about New Hamp- 
shire, about farming, and kindred subjects, 
and became good friends. "And Daniel 
Webster is," said Mr. Hill, enthusiastically, 
" the greatest man who ever lived in Ameri- 
ca ! " As Mr. Hill died early in 1851, this 
personal friendliness was probably never 
again interrupted. Governor Hill was an 
enthusiast about farming, and a fluent talker 
about the merits of pine-plaiu lands and 
Chenango and New York red potatoes. 

Gen. Franklin Pierce came in rather often. 
He was then, in the view of liimself and a 
very few intimates, a likely enough candidate 
for the presidency of the United States in 
1852, a scheme to effect his nomination hav- 
ing been considered, on his return from the 
Mexican war in 1848, by himself, Pierre 
Soule of I^ouisiana (Pierce's minister to 
Spain), Edmund Puffin of Virginia (who 
fired tlie first cannon shot at Fort Sumter in 
1861), ex-Congressman John S. Barljour of 
Virginia (who was active in Pierce's behalf 
in the Baltimore convention of June, 1852), 
and probably Jefferson Davis (Pierce's secre- 



114 Sixty Years in Concord. 

tary of war), as well as others. This is 
related on the autlioritj of a friend who had 
the general's full confidence. Judge Levi 
Woodbury, of Portsmouth, had early in 1851 
been put in the foreground as a candidate for 
the presidency b}' the Democratic state con- 
vention of New Hampshire, but he died in 
September of that year. General Pierce was 
trimming his political sails so carefully to 
catch the Southern breeze, in the winter of 
1851-'52, that he squelclied a movement to 
invite Louis Kossuth to visit Concord, be- 
cause tlie Hungarian patriot was not well 
received at Richmond, or some like Southern 
city.* All the talk of that time about the 
presidential nomination being an utter sur- 
prise to him was mere political claptrap. 

Charles H. Peaslee, Asa Fowler, Calvin 
Ainsworth, and other men of that coterie, 
were often in the bookstore, as was Jesse A. 
Gove, who had been a lieutenant with Gen- 
eral Pierce in the Mexican war, was after- 
ward colonel of the Twenty-second jNIassa- 
chusetts regiment, and was killed in battle on 
the Virginia peninsula in elune, 1862. Col- 
onel Gove was then reading law. Among 
the local law students of about that period 

*In regard to Kossuth, Charles Sumner wrote to his brother 
George from Washington. Jan. 5, 1852, "There is a wretched 
opposition to him here proceeding from slavery-. " 



Personal RecoUections. 115 

were Col. John H. George, Francis B. Pea- 
body, since of Chicago, William B. Gale, 
since a distinguished Massachusetts lawyer, 
Sidney Webster and Stratford Cannino- Bai- 
ley, afterward of New York city. 

There was another rather frequent and 
somewhat dangerous visitor: this was Sam- 
uel G. Chase, of Hopkinton, a man of Hercu- 
lean size and strange fancies. Rather gentle 
in his ordinary moods, he never came in with- 
out inquiring if I was a son of Judge Upham, 
toward whom he did not feel kindl}^ for he 
had a craz}^ notion that the judge was keep- 
ing the Concord Railroad out of his personal 
possession. Once he came in with a gun, 
and seemed to be hunting for the judge, but 
left the weapon in the store until he v^ent 
home in the evening. Afterward he shot at 
a Hopkinton man, toward whom he had 
some dislike, and was committed to the asy- 
lum for the insane. 

Another queer visitor became an habitual 
lounger on the premises. His custom was to 
go behind the counter, find some book, and 
busy himself in reading it, always in the 
vicinity of the money-drawer. After a time 
suspicion led me to fasten a bell to the 
drawer with a whalebone spring fixed so it 
must ring if the drawer was opened. The 



116 SLrty Years in Concord- 

denouement came with startling promptness. 
The thief came to the store when Mr. Brown 
was out, but Mrs. Brown happened by some 
fortunate chance to come in. Our visitor 
took his accustomed position, and when he 
thought liimself unobserved, the bell rang 
loudly, — a sort of vigilance-committee ring, 
heard ver}^ distinctly all over the store. 
He discovered that he was detected, and 
departed. In response to a note from Mr. 
Brown he returned that evening, confessed, 
and eventually made restitution of a sum 
sufficient, he said, to cover his stealings ; so 
he was promised immunity from exposure. 
He was not what our people called '' town 
born," that is, not by birtli a Concord boy. 

St. Valentine's Avas an eventful day, for 
sending valentines was a prevalent custom. 
Those which we sold came from New York. 
Some were regarded as very elegant, and cost 
two or three dollars each, but those called 
comic were hideous things, unfit to be put 
in the mail ; — nearly all found ready sale 
at retail prices about doul)le the wholesale 
cost. 

Macaulay's History of England, at least 
two volumes of it, was pul)lislied in London 
in 1849, and American publishers made haste 
to reprint it. Harper & Brotliers got out an 



Personal Recollections. 117 

edition in a few days after they obtained a 
copy, at two dollars a volume. Phillips, 
Sampson & Co., of Boston, followed this 
with one at a dollar a volume, and Harper & 
Brothers retorted with another at fifty cents ; 
so almost everybody was just then reading 
Jiistory. 

Hcoyer's 3Ia(/azine was started in 1850, 
and there was some local demand for it, 
though less than a dozen copies monthly were 
taken at our store during the first year of its 
existence. It was a reprint of articles se- 
lected from English magazines, and the first 
number had but three engravings in addition 
to some fashion plates. However, it was bet- 
ter than Godey's Lady's Book or Graltanis 
Magazine^ which had been in favor, and was 
.said by the publishers to be " unsurpassed b}^ 
any similar publication in the Avorld." Tlie 
work of the engravers and printers was much 
inferior to that of the magazines of to-day. 

Tlie American Art Union was a respecta- 
ble New York lottery of that day. Au}^ per- 
son, by the payment of five dollars, could 
obtain a valuable engraving, and entitle liim- 
self to a chance of drawing by lot some 
more valuable book, picture, bronze, or 
statue. Mr. Baruch Biddle was fortunate 
enoug'h to draw Audubon's Birds of Amer- 



118 Sixty Years in Concord. 

ica, several volumes, witli life-size colored 
plates — a splendid prize ; but Mr. Biddle was 
not an ornithologist, so he left the work with 
Mr. Brown to be sold if a satisfactory price 
could be obtained. It remained in the store, 
an object of much interest, for several months, 
l)ut eventually went to a distant buyer, at, I 
think, 8300. Copies are reported to have 
sold in London recently for 81,725. 

The sword presented to General Pierce, 
under vote of the legishiture of New Hamp- 
shire in June, 1849, for service in the Mexi- 
can war, was on exhibition at the bookstore 
as long as it attracted any curiosity. The 
general received a similar weapon from ladies 
of Concord in May, 1847, and the presenta- 
tion speecli was made by the daughter of a 
clergyman. 

The Franklin Bookstore, as Mr. Brown 
called it, appeared to be prosperous, and its 
owner contented; therefore it was a consider- 
able surprise when Mr. B. W. Sanborn, who 
had a bookstore just across the street, came 
over in May, 1850, and, with very little talk 
or ado, bought the wliole concern, — books, 
stationery, fancy goods, and Mr. Brown's 
share in the building. Tlie second year of 
my clerkship was passing, and the fifty dol- 
lars salary had been doubled ; but it had been 



Personal Recollections. 119 

made plain to me that my father was right, 
that I had better not be a book-seller ; so, I'e- 
maining with the new proprietor only long 
enougli for his assistants to become familiar 
with the shop, I went out to see what other 
way of business might open. 



VIII. 

At the end of this bookselling experience 
my father was en route for Europe Avith his 
brother Andrew, the superintendent of the 
New Hampsliire Asylum for the Insane, in 
tlie prosecution of a plan for travel long cher- 
ished by them both. As the coach for the 
railway station took him from our door, on a 
bright July morning in 1850, Mr. Nathan 
Stickney, usually one of the selectmen of the 
town, drove by, and being a witness to the 
leave-taking, said to my friend George Gault, 
who was driving Avith him, that he never ex- 
pected to see Mr. McFarland again. That is 
how the dangers of sailing to Europe were 
estimated in Concord. M}^ father's voyages 
to Liverpool and from London were made by 
way of the Grinnell, Minturn & Co. New 
York line of sailing packets, some of the best 
ships in wliich Avere built in Portsmouth, and 
at least one of them liad a New Hampshire 
captain. 

I was so fortunate as not to be long out of 
emplo3mient. Mr. Rufus Lane, Avho has been 
mentioned before as a compositor in my 



Personal MecoUection,^. 121 

father's printing-office, had become clerk and 
tirae-keeper at the machine shop of the Con- 
cord Railroad at 11.17 a day, and I was hired 
to assist him temporarily in the preparation 
of some tabular statements. Then I was at 
the postoffice two or three weeks, serving 
under Major Ephraim Hutchins, who had 
given up the Phcenix hotel, and was eiglith 
in the honorable line of Concord postmasters. 
By this time the work which I had done under 
Mr. Lane's supervision had been noticed in 
the office of the superintendent of the Con- 
cord Railroad, and I was engaged to serve as 
a junior clerk in that office for #20 a month. 
The Concord Railroad had been chartered 
as early as 1835. It was contemplated at first 
to build from Lowell to Concord. The dis- 
tance from Nashua to Concord is less than 
thirty-five miles, and the elevation to be over- 
come in that distance is less than one hun- 
dred and seventeen feet. Engineers estimated 
the cost of a single track with sufficient roll- 
ing stock would be $550,000 ; this was, how- 
ever, for a line on the west side of the Merri- 
mack all the way, which would require no 
long bridges. It was difficult to raise even 
the above named sum. Pecuniary troubles, 
which culminated in 1837, exerted a depress- 
ing influence, but in 1840 a resolute effort 



122 Sixt^ Years in Concord. 

was made. Messrs. Joseph Low, Natlianiel 
G. Upham, and Charles H. Peaslee, a com- 
mittee of the corporators, made a report, 
which was of the nature of a prospectus, giv- 
ing details of cost and probable traffic, as 
well as some careful estimates made by Peter 
Clark, of Nashua, Avho liad been agent of the 
Nashua & Lowell Railroad, and was engaged 
to go over this line as an expert. These gen- 
tlemen mentioned as an encouraging circum- 
stance that a railroad had l)een constructed 
from Montreal soutlierly to St. Johns on the 
Sorel or Richelieu river ; also that a toll-gate- 
man just below Concord had kept statistics, 
which proved that 35,760 tons of freight had 
passed through his gate by teams in one year, 
while the Concord Boating Company carried 
7,039 tons ; and the stage-coaches on the 
Mammoth road carried 29,758 passengers in 
the year ending Sept. 30, 1840. The freight 
rate from Boston to Concord by canal-boat 
was $D per ton ; going back with the stream 
it was one dollar less. A boat was five days 
coming up and four days returning, and the 
capacity of a boat was fifteen tons. There 
were twenty boats, tliree men to each. (The 
freight rate by boat in 1815 was thirteen dol- 
lars per ton up stream and eight dollars down 
stream.) The fare for a passenger between 



Persoiial Recollections. 128 

Boston and Concord when it was stage-coach- 
ing all the way was -IS, later by coach and 
cars it was •it'2.50, and by the Mammoth road 
it became as low as f 2. The freight rate b}^ 
teams before boats began to run Avas 120 a 
ton. 

Seeking town aid for railroads was a resort 
of even that day. In 1836 the town of Con- 
cord voted to apply to the legislature for 
authority to subscribe for shares in this en- 
terprise, and to borrow money wherewith to 
make payment therefor. In January, 1837, 
such authority was obtained, and subscrip- 
tions were made for eight hundred shares of 
fifty dollars each. In 1841, disturbed by the 
magnitude of the undertaking, six hundred 
shares (on which the first assessment had 
been paid), were turned over free of cost to 
the Concord Literary Institution, which sold 
them to Gen. Joseph Low for 1675, and other 
disposition was made of a remaining lot of 
two hundred shares. This was a preater 
mistake than George Gault and I made when 
we hid our burlesque ballots in the Stickney 
wood-pile. The dividends of the corporation, 
from the date of its opening in September, 
1842, average a little more than nine per 
cent, per annum. Eacli one hundred dollars 
invested has returned directly to its owner 



12:1: Sixty YeavH hi Concord. 

(May, 1890) four hundred and thirty dollars, 
while the property has been greatly improved, 
and the investment is apparently as safe as 
ever. There have been some fluctuations in 
this prosperity. In 1855 business Avas not 
satisfactory, and but six per cent, was divided. 
If my memory is not at fault, there was but 
one through daily passenger train on each of 
the roads north of Concord that year. 

Although it was feared at one period that 
the Concord road miglit be compelled to make 
its northern terminus at Amoskeag, at least 
temporarily, means were obtained to complete 
it as a single track on the line adopted, with 
two bridges over the Merrimack, and suffi- 
cient buildino^s and rollino^ stock, for some- 
thing less than $800,000. The iron rails came 
from England, weiglied fifty-six pounds per 
yard, and cost on the wharf in Boston about 
•f 55 a ton. Now the best steel rails, weighing 
seventy-two pounds per 3^ard, cost i35 a ton. 
The second track was laid in 1848, and the 
capital increased to #1,500,000. The corpo- 
ration owned at fii'st but three locomotives, 
the "Souhegan," '' Piscataquog," and "Amos- 
keag," to which the " Hooksett"and " Pena- 
cook " were shortl}' added, each of ten tons' 
weight. Taken altogether, they weighed less 
than the " General Lafayette" of to-day. The 



Personal Reeollections. 125 

" Suncook," which weighed fourteen tons, 
was obtained in 1845 or 1816, and was re- 
garded as a tremendous affair. It stood on 
four driving-wheels, without a forward truck, 
and was awkward in movement, but it did 
good work. If I am not mistaken, I saw it 
once back up into the Northern yard, hitch to 
a train of fifty-seven long, loaded cars, drag 
them from the side track, and then away to 
Nashua in a most resolute, self-reliant way. 

In 1847, when annual statistics began to 
be deemed worthy of publication, the mileage 
of Concord Railroad trains was stated at 
143,251 ; passengers carried numbered 203,- 
505; freight carried, 103,371 tons. In 1889 
the passengers carried numbered 893,110; 
tons of freight, 1,652,322. 

In the report of a committee of stockholders 
made in 1851 is a statement in regard to the 
lands and station buildings of the company. 
The lands in Concord were a little more than 
sixteen acres. The first passenger station 
had been removed, and converted into a car- 
house ; and the second one, designed by Mr. 
Riclip.rd Bond, an architect of Boston, had 
been built by our townsman, Philip Watson. 
This building in outward appearance was 
about what our city hall would be if the 
dome and piazza Avere removed, the wings 



126 Sixty Yearn i)i Concord. 

lengthened, and a piazza constructed in front 
of each wing. Within it on the lower floor 
were the train-house and the necessary 
adjuncts ; on the second floor were a large 
hall, and the offices of four railway corpora- 
tions, — the Concord, the Northern, the Mon- 
treal, and the Portsmouth. The Concord 
company's offices were in the southwest cor- 
ner, and other rooms were furnished to the 
other companies free of rent. The hall, sixty- 
three by sixty-nine feet in area, was the most 
convenient one in Concord (then or since), 
being up only one flight, and reached by two 
broad, easy staircases. The rent charged 
was four or five dollars an evening, a little 
more if the company furnished a ticket- 
seller. Some notable events took place 
within its walls. Madame Parodi sung there, 
so did Adelina Patti, then (1853) ten years 
old, and so did Madame Anna Bishop, accom- 
panied by the great master of the harp, 
Bochsa. Ole Bull was there with his violin. 
Washington Allston's great picture of Bel- 
shazza's Feast was shown in an adjoining- 
room, in March, 1819. The lecturers of the 
Concord Lyceum,* for fees of |20 each, oc- 

*This was an association of young men who assembled 
one evening in each week in the hall of the Natural History 
Society for improvement in debate. On one appointed even- 
ing the question was, " Ought Concord to adopt a city char- 
ter?" and public attention to the discussion was invited. 



Personal Recollections. 127 

c'upied its platform, — lialpli Waldo Eiiiersoii, 
Oliver Wendell Holmes, John G. Saxe, Thom- 
as Starr King, Dr. J. Y. C. Smith, ex-mayor 
of Boston, and the ex-actress, Miss E. Kini- 
berly, reader of Shakespeare. Gen. Frank- 
lin Pierce was received there, and made a 
pnblic address on his retnrn from the War 
with Mexico, in January, 1848 ; and there, in 
1856, a meeting was held which resolved that 
he be received in '' solenni, mournful silence," 
when as president of tlie United States he 
visited Concord in a partisan way during the 
Kansas-Nebraska agitation and the Buchanan- 
Fremont presidential campaign. The first 
state fair, held in October, 1850, was parti}- 
in this hall, partly in the company's machine- 
shop, and partl}^ on the meadows east of the 
station. Tickets to these various places of 
exhibition Avere sold in a temporary shed on 
the south platform of the passenger station. 
The hall continued in full popularity, al- 
though the evening trains were an occasional 
element of disturbance, until 1855, when 
Phcenix liall was l)uilt on Main street. 



The invitation was rather generally accepted, and the ladies 
and gentlemen who assembled must have been amused when 
one of the disputants, Samuel Hermann, a Bohemian boj- 
who was learning of Ivory Hall the trade of a silversmith, 
and spoke English imperfectly, gravely argued in favt)r of 
the charter because its adoption would transmute Concord 
directly into a metropolis like New York or Boston. After 
leaving Concord, Samuel entered Trinity college. 



128 Sixty Years hi Concord. 

Public affairs and political meetings were 
occasionally held at Depot hall until it was 
burned in 1859. One of the last uses to 
which the old place was put was the drying 
on its floor of a remainder of two car loads of 
cotton, which took fire on the way from 
Boston to Manchester, and was by the good 
management of Conductor Freeman Webster 
run off the track into the pond at Winchester, 
Mass. 

The personal organization when I joined 
it was formidable for a short road. It resem- 
bled a military company with more musical 
instruments than muskets. The president 
was Isaac Spaulding, who lived at Nashua : 
he was the largest stockholder, and was paid 
f 1,000 a year. He was a timid- man in deal- 
ing with men, but sensible and practical ; 
kept one eye on the Boston stock-market 
where lie ventured his money, and the other 
on Peter Clark — after Peter became hostile 
to the road. Hon. N. G. Upham was the 
superintendent at #2,000 a year, performing 
also many duties which are now regarded as 
belonging to a president, for which, being a 
trained lawyer, he was abundantly qualified. 
Mr. Upham had been a judge of the superior 
court of New Hampshire, and probably some 
of the good law which I liad, as hereinbefore 



Pei'sonal Recollections. 129 

mentioned, toted up and down the stairs in 
the Historical Society's building, was of his 
making. The judge, as he was always called 
on the road, Avas a man of foresight, thought- 
ful, and watchful of any legislative or politi- 
cal influences Avhich might l)e harmful to 
railways. He w^as annoyed by gadflies of 
the press and forum, who swarmed together 
at certain seasons and joined forces for an 
attack. These people carried their hostilities 
into the legislature, where they were con- 
fronted by a most respectable lobby, com- 
posed of persons whose names, if listed here 
in collection with the little ($15 and $25 
and $50) fees which they received, would 
excite both wonder and merriment. The 
judge managed all the relations of the com- 
pany toward the public, and Avith connecting 
roads, in a most satisfactory manner. His 
administration Avas careful, honest, and suc- 
cessful. There Avere questions as to division 
of traffic and earnings so well settled then 
as to become established railway customs. 
There Avere also physical uncertainties ; — 
one of our people thought a snoAA^-ploAV 
might be driven by a hand-car ; another, that 
snow would pi'event trains from ever run- 
ning north of Concord in Avinter. The judge 
himself had a dream}' mind for mechanical 



130 Sixty Years in Concord. 

matters, and was at some disadvantage on 
that acconnt. He was also nearsighted, and 
rather fearful that something was going on 
just beyond his vision not altogether to his 
liking. Curiously enough, he once made an 
attempt to test the sight of Phineas Davis, 
a passenger-train engineer, who had, it was 
liinted, some visual defect. The jndge, witli 
spectacles carefully burnislied and adjusted, 
called Phineas off the engine, walked u^) 
and down the platform in conversation witli 
him, and suddenly inquired if lie could see 
some object wdiich was tlieii in the distance ; 
but nobody ever knew which could better see 
the target, the judge or the engineer. 

Mr. Harvey Rice was the master mechanic 
in the iron-shop, and Mr. John Kimball filled 
a like place in the wood-shop. Each was 
paid 'f 1,000 a year ; but these salaries seemed 
so generous in that day, that when a list 
of employees and their compensation was 
printed in the annual reports, they were 
stated at $3,191- per day, to sootlie the vision 
of stockholders who might each, like Mrs. 
John Gilpin, have a frugal mind. Mr. James 
A. Weston was the civil engineer, at the same 
salary, in charge of repairs of the line and 
construction. It does not look as if either of 
these gentlemen was overpaid. Mr. Rice has 



Personal Recollections. 131 

since been master mechanic, or superintendent 
of motive power, of vastly greater roads, such 
as the Erie. Mr. Kimball has gained honors 
of many kinds, and so has Mr. Weston ; in 
fact, the state paid the latter as much to be 
governor. Hon. Benjamin A. Kimball had 
just entered on his connection witli the com- 
pany. George G. Sanborn, since local treas- 
urer of the Northern Pacific Railroad, sold 
tickets in the passenger station, and got 
•ii^l.67 a day for doing it. Elliott Chickering, 
an incorruptible man of the old Whig school, 
was the wood-buyer, and charged §1.50 a 
day for liis work. He had risen from the 
position of switchman. His coon-skin cap 
and cigar pointing skyward were familiar 
objects in winter. John H. Elliott, who had 
been a stage-coacli agent, was the general 
ticket agent at §800 per annum ; John C. 
Gault, who has since been general manager 
of the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad, and 
lield other like positions in the West, was 
a clerk in the Manchester freight-house at 
§1.42 a day; Nathaniel P. Lovering, the 
treasurer, earned in 1850 a salary of §1,000 
per annum, and had an office in Boston, on 
State street, in the Merchants Exchange, — a 
building which was one of the architectural 
wonders of New England, but just now 



132 Sixty Yea7's in Concord. 

pulled down as a mere (3uniberer of the 
ground. I told iny father, after his return 
from Europe, about Mr. Lovering's princely 
income (with another salary from the Pas- 
sumpsic Co.), and he encouraged me to hope 
that I might sometime do as well. Reuben 
Sherburne, since a most prosperous Boston 
merchant, was the master of transportation, 
equivalent to general freight agent, and re- 
ceipted for '^1,200 per annum. George A. 
Pillsbury, the Minneapolis millionaire, who 
has just given to Concord the Margaret 
Pillsbury Hospital, succeeded Mr. Chicker- 
ing as wood-buyer, and came on the road 
a little later; as did also William S. Kim- 
ball, the rich tobacconist of Rochester, N. Y., 
who worked in the machine-shop, and now 
and then made a trip as fireman on a loco- 
motive. Now he has in his greenhouse 
1125,000 worth of orchids. The railroad 
seems to have been as good a training-school 
as an Institute of Technology. 

Mr. James W. Sargent, at 'f 700 a year, was 
my immediate superior. He Avas called pay- 
master and superintendent's clerk, but his 
duties were like those given to a local treas- 
urer of to-day. He had been a teacher of 
penmanship, and could keep a tidy set of 
books with entries of formal routine char- 



Personal MeeoUections. 133 

acter; was particular about his pens and 
paper ; but got started fairly too late in life, 
or had not self-reliance and mental reach 
enough ever to get a greater railroad place. 
He took a department clerkship at Washing- 
ton in July, 1859. 

Beside this indoor life at the desk, I was 
given some open air duties ; was often sent 
to Nashua with a message to our president, 
or to the Nashua Bank, of which he was also 
president, to exchange money taken on the 
road for circulating notes of its own, every 
bank being then in intense rivalry with every 
other^ to keep its own notes out and to get 
other bills in. 

Levi P. Wright, the conductor who ran the 
lieavy passenger train from Boston, which 
reached Concord at 10 : 30 a. m. and returned 
at 3 : 30 p. m., and who had an adequate 
sense of the dignity of the duties which he 
was performing for ^54.17 a month, caught 
me at Nashua on my first errand, and pulled 
me up for an introduction to Mr. F. M. 
Stimson, station agent (|50 a month), and 
George W. Page, ticket-seller (|24 a month), 
as Mr. Sargent's ''new boy." I knew he 
was quizzing me a little for my shyness in 
a new relation, but as Page had been a school- 
mate of mine, this did nobody any harm, and 



134 Sixty Years in Concord. 

it was not very long before I gained courage 
enough to run Mr. Wright's train when he 
wanted a day off from duty. 

In public estimation the conductors were 
the most important railway officials. They 
were seen daily, Avhile the rules and time- 
tables, and brief messages from headquarters, 
to control such useful and dignified gentle- 
men, were not apparent. Beside Mr. Wright, 
there were George Clougli and William Dole, 
each at #50 a month. Mr. Clough began 
when the road began, having previously been 
a stage-coachman, and served down to 1866, 
twenty-four solid years. Mr. Dole liad been 
landlord of the Phoenix, and obtained his 
position on the road by purchase from his 
predecessor, Ira Foster, on the payment of 
$500, as commissions were formerly sold in 
the British ai'my. I never heard of another 
case of purchase of place on a railroad train. 

The engine-drivers were next in public 
regard, and were a ratlier remarkable group. 
Seth Hopkins and liis brother William were 
the eldest in rank, and ran the two best 
passenger trains, at '1{)2.25 a day. A run to 
Nashua and back was reckoned a day's work. 
Seth was a strong, fearless man, rough in 
speech, punctual, always demanding the best 
engine, giving it no gentle usage, and getting- 



Fer^onaJ MecoUertions. 135 

its utmosfc out of it. He dared risks which 
others might shrink from, such as letting 
water go below all tlie gauges to get tlie 
utmost steam space in the boiler, in a com- 
petitive trial of engines at Lowell. This 
experiment resulted in a dead failure, for the 
fusible plug melted, and out went his fire ; 
but coolness and careful judgment carried 
liim safely through a hazardous experience of 
twenty years. He said that his train was run 
on the theory that every switch was set wrong 
for him all the way from Concord to Nashua 
and back. 

William Hopkins was a different character, 
fearful of danger, alert, and watchful as a 
lynx. Careful of his engine, he was esteemed 
highly by the master mechanics. A collision 
at Goff's falls in May, 1854, which came 
about through no fault of his, frightened 
him out of the service, because through this 
accident he discovered that his own prudence 
could not keep peril at arm's length. In that 
case, having reversed his engine and opened 
the sand-box, he jumped overboard, and came 
to himself among the wreck, with the red 
contents of a demijohn flung out of the ex- 
press car dripping from his clotliing. There 
was no doubt of his fright, but a reassuring 
smell of old brandy in the air revived him. 



136 Sixty Years in Concord. 

and he proved to be uninjured. Still lie left 
the road soon afterward, took a contract for 
stone work on the Boston & Lowell Railway, 
and before long was instantly killed by the 
fall of a derrick. 

Phineas Davis, at f 2 a day, was a patient, 
gentle man, full of good intentions, but 
rather nervous ; went over his engine while 
it was in motion, and at train stops was out 
with a wrench or an oil-can to doctor some 
rattle or squeak. He went into a damaged 
culvert with the engine '' John Kimball," on 
the Manchester & Lawrence division, in 
1864, and was killed. 

Charles F. Barrett, at that time in receipt 
of $2 a day, was an easy-going man, careful 
and conscientious. No more successful driver 
ever stood on a locomotive. Forty-three years 
in charge of an engine, witliout an accident 
involving loss of life or injury to person or 
property laid at his dooj", is a record that 
tells its own story of vigilance and capability. 
I was once sent down the road in charge of a 
special train carrying the Canadian mail for 
Europe, which had been delayed north of 
Concord, and we started about the time the 
mail should have been in East Boston. The 
steamship was waiting, and we had direc- 
tions to go as far as Lowell without tlie usual 



Personal Recollections. 137 

change of engines at Nashua. I heard some- 
body tell Mr. Barrett to run as fast as possi- 
ble, — but there was a thick fog in the air, and 
he would not go an inch in a mile faster than 
was safe ; so the Cunarder had to wait until 
the sleepy Canadian mail agent got on board, 
about two and a half liours late, with the 
wonderful Royal mail, perhaps fifteen bushels 
of it. 

When the Mcinchester & Lawrence line to 
Boston was completed, in 1850, a sharp com- 
petition sprung up. In September of that 
year it was determined by the managers of 
the line via Lowell to put on two daily ex- 
press trains between Concord and Boston, 
and the Concord compan}- furnislied one train 
which went through to Boston and back 
without chanoe of eno-ine or driver. This 
train left Concord at 6: 15 a. m., and return- 
ing left Boston at 5 : 25 p. m. There w^ere 
but three way stops, and the time going 
toward Boston was an hour and fifty-five 
minutes ; returning, it was two hours. Seth 
Hopkins ran our train with the " General 
Stark " engine, built by the Amoskeag Manu- 
facturing Co., and day by day that train was 
delivered at each end of the run on time ; 
but I think the Boston & Lowell train, 
which was given the same running time, left 



138 Sixty^ Years in Concord. 

Boston at 8:15 a. ni., and returning left 
Concord at 4 p. m., drawn usaally by the 
"• Baldwin,'' sometimes by the " McNeil," did 
not reach Concord squarely on time in the 
whole season, much to the chargin of the 
driver, Lester Aldrich, who declared to our 
superintendent that no engine then ow^ued by 
the Lowell company had boiler capacity and 
power enough to make the run. The truth 
is, that the Low^ell company had not then 
much heart in its long travel. It was a fav- 
orite statement of one of its directors, that 
the business of their Woburn branch was 
worth more to tliem tlian everything they 
got from above LoAvell. My recollection as 
to the time made by our express train of 
1850 may be questioned by local railroad 
men of to-day ; but the statement is con- 
firmed by the Pathfinder Railway Guide., the 
manager of wliich has very kindly referred to 
his files for that year, and finds that the train 
left Concord at 6 : 15, Manchester at 6 : 40, 
and ]'eached Boston at 8 : 10. Returning, it 
left Boston at 5 : 25, Nashua at 6 : 25, Man- 
chester at 6 : 50, and reached Concord at 
7 : 25. No train over the same line is doing- 
better now. It was fixed in my memory that 
the downw^ard time of our company's train 
was one hour and forty-five minutes, and so 



Personal JiecoUections. 139 

thought Harvey Rice, then master mechanic^ 
and Charles F. Webster, then hreman on the 
" Gen. Stark," but T suppose we cannot go 
behind the record in the Pathjinde7\ 

About that time the 4moskeag Manufac- 
turing Company completed a tall engine 
called the " Mameluke," with driving-wheels 
seven feet high. Standing on the ground I 
could just touch the top of those wheels 
with an outstretched finger. Our company 
was urged to buy this engine for the express 
train, and some trial runs were made with it, 
but the '' General," with wheels five and a 
half feet high, was equal to the service : the 
" Mameluke " was as great a terror to the 
master mechanics as the cavalry of the desert 
were to Mohammed Ali, and the purchase 
was never made. Charles F. Barrett once 
drove this engine, with six passenger cars, 
from Concord to Nashua in forty-two min- 
utes, with Levi P. Wright conductor, and 
George Little baggageman. On this trip the 
" Mameluke " ran ten miles at the rate of one 
mile in one ininute and two seconds. A 
recent mayor of ^Manchester, D. B. Varney, 
rode on the front of the engine, a badly 
frightened man. The " Mameluke " was 
eventually reduced in height, and found a 
buyer in the New York Central Compan} . 



140 Sixty Years in Concord. 

It was a part of my work to make the 
monthly payment of wages to employees of 
the road. At the machine-shop it was the 
rule to cover the pay-roll with a sheet of 
blotting-paper, with an opening therein, which 
sheet was slid around to emxble a man to 
sign for his own pay without disturbing his 
peace of mind by seeing what other men were 
paid. Daniel Law, a big blacksmith, once 
committed a notable breach of etiquette by 
lifting the blotting paper and reading the 
whole list. Station agents could of course 
be reached for payment by passenger trains, 
but to find section-men I caught rides on 
freight trains and hand-cars, or, if nothing- 
else served, track walking was the resource. 
The risks of robbery would forbid that kind 
of tramping now. 

After our compau}^ took control of the 
Manchester & Lawrence there was more 
train service for the passenger conductors, 
and I made trips often for one or another of 
them. For three successive weeks I did the 
work of a conductor, one hundred and fifty- 
eight miles a day, beside some office work. 
This was when the old rail chairs were in 
the track, and the clatter of wheels as they 
rolled over the rail joints filled my ears by 
day and echoed in my slumbers all night. 



Personal Reeollections. 141 

Nothinof was allowed for sucb extra service, 
and it was not in itself much to my liking ; 
but it carried me to Lawrence often, where 
at the right season I loitered about the then 
grassy site of the present Pacific mills, and 
saw great draughts of shad taken by fisher- 
men using a seine ; — also, and this was of 
much more consequence to me, I gained in 
that then small city an acquaintance which 
was the most fortunate of my life. 

There were trains taken over the road at 
some times to which I look back with won- 
der tliat nobody was hurt. Think of the 
thronged state fairs, and running out of 
Manchester, in the twilight, without air- 
brakes or Miller platforms, seventeen cars 
crowded with passengers, some of whom 
were rather hilarious. That no accident 
occurred on these occasions is abundant evi- 
dence of the patience, skill, and caution of 
the engineers. There were the Central Ver- 
mont trains also, which during some winters 
were late every evening, and a special trip 
to Nashua became necessary, with a late 
return on the engine, up the cold, dark val- 
ley, past the black factories and the blacker 
canals, hurtling along into the shuddering 
air, with the headlight cleaving a narrow 
rift in the darkness, its rays gleaming a lit- 



142 Sixty Years in Concord. 

tie way off on the cold rails, and reflected 
dimly by the white switch targets. William 
Hopkins (may he rest in peace!) on dark, 
sleety nights leaned far ont of the cab side- 
window, facing the storm, to get the farthest 
possible view aronnd cnrves, incidentally 
muttering something else than benedictions 
for people who took the risk of running over 
the Manchester crossings ahead of the fl3'ing 
*' Tahanto " or " Passaconaway." 

After appropriating for our engines the 
local Indian names, mythology was resorted 
to, and the " Titan " came on the road. One 
of our master mechanics read somewhere of 
the " wheel of Ixion," and deputized me to 
find out who that personage was. Search 
was made in a friend's Dictionary of Mythol- 
ogy, and the quest being satisfactory, Ixion 
gave his name to a freight engine. I tried 
to induce the authorities to go into poetry, 
and have a '^ Tarn O'Shanter " and " John 
Gilpin," but they never did. 

It is sometimes wondered how conductors, 
with so few errors, collect the tickets of pas- 
sengers who get on at way stations and dis- 
tribute themselves through a train. Tliere 
are various ways of identifying such, but the 
expectancy which shows in the face of an 
honest passenger when the conductor ap- 



Personal RecoUections. 143 

proaclies aids as much as anything. 1 have 
known men to jump on a train, and be to 
all appearance fast asleep before the con- 
ductor could get to them. 

There was little or no Sunday work. 'Jlie 
only Sunday train was an infrequent one to 
take along the Canadian mail, if the fort- 
nightly Canard steamship liappened to come 
into Boston on a Sunday morning. It was 
a whistle of this train below Concord which 
brought Joseph A. Gilmore (then in trade) 
to his feet and out of the First Baptist 
church, one forenoon, to ascertain the price 
of grain in Liverpool ; and when Rev. Dr. 
Cummings went Monday morning to the 
store to rebuke his parishioner, Mr. Gil- 
]nore saw him approaching, and, as he came 
within hearing, shouted to the teamster to 
hurry up to the pastor's house with a bar- 
rel of the best flour. 

I have already mentioned Mr. Reuben 
Sherburne, our master of transportation. His 
office was in tlie early da3'S at the freight- 
house in Boston, where his duties were per- 
formed in a most accurate and business-like 
wa}^ Judge Upliam determined that this 
office should be in Concord, and Mr. Slier- 
burne came here as early as 1852, remaining 
not very long before he was appointed super- 



144 Sixty Years in Concord. 

intendent of the Vermont Central. Mr. 
James A. Weston became master of trans- 
portation, and brought about my transfer as 
clerk to that office. On taking possession, 
Mr. Weston did not ask for any explanation 
of affairs, nor did Mr. Sherburne volunteer 
any; so I had a puzzle in studying books, 
papers, and letters to pick up the thread of 
affairs, for Mr. Weston remained the civil 
engineer of the company, and gave his per- 
sonal care to the duties of that office. There 
had been a belief on our road that nobody 
but Mr. Sherburne and his l)rothers knew 
anything worth knowing about freight busi- 
ness, with the possible exception of Mr. Will- 
iam M. Parker of the Northern, and it did 
not add to my comfort, during the trials of 
those first two or three weeks, to have friends 
coming in with curious faces to witness the 
tremendous failure to which they said we 
were doomed ; but patience and study solved 
all the problems, and fortunately the company 
did not have to take the freight trains off the 
road. 

My most intimate railroad friends were 
George E. Todd, since superintendent of the 
Northern ; James R. Kendrick, since superin- 
tendent of the Old Colony ; Henry C. Sher- 
burne, not long ago president of the North- 



Personal Recollections. 145 

ern ; George G. Sanborn, now of St. Paul, 
Minn. ; O. A. Clough, now of The South pub- 
lishing company of New York ; Charles H. 
Ham, since of Chicago, author of the book, 
" Manual Training," and a writer on political, 
financial, and social topics ; John Kimball 
and Benjamin A. Kimball of Concord, James 
A. Weston of Manchester, and Charles I. 
Elliott. It may be worth recording that all 
these are living except the last named, who 
was killed by an accident at the Dalles, Ore., 
Aug. 29, 1861.* During the summer of 1854 
Charles H. Ham and I took a three-months 
vacation and went to Labrador, of which voy- 
age something will be written in another 
chapter. 

Judge Upham was in Europe from July, 
1853, to January, 1855, and during his ab- 
sence the road was run by a triumvirate, 
with the president, Mr. Spaulding, as procon- 
sul. This plan was a failure in some ways, 
— one of its results being that when the 
judge returned our department of the office 
was out of favor, and before long its duties 
fell upon me. I endeavored to do all the in- 
door and some of the out-door duties without 
a clerk, but found after less than a year's 
trial that I should ruin my sight by careful 

* Mr. Kendrick, Mr. Todd, and Mr. Weston have since 
died. 

10 



146 Sixty Years in Concord. 

work on books ruled with close horizontal 
and perpendicular lines of various colors, so 
1 bowed myself out in the summer of 1856, 
but have always looked back to those six 
years' service in the Concord Railroad staff 
with contentment and pleasui-e. 

The corporation at that time was managed 
with considerable regard to the growth and 
welfare of Concord, and I am sure that if 
Judge Upham had been in actual control at 
a later period, the shameless taking up of the 
direct rails to Portsmouth, and the building 
of tlie Pittsfield line from Hooksett, would 
not have been perpetrated. 



IX. 

On the northeastern coast, not far from 
where Canada terminates and Labrador be- 
gins, where the Gulf of St. Lawrence nar- 
rows into the Strait of Belleisle, is an inlet 
of the sea named Bonne Esperance bay. It 
is in the same latitude as the city of London. 
Forty years ago Newburyport fishermen 
called it, or a portion of it, Salmon River 
harbor. It is an inlet of considerable extent, 
irregular in shape, and tlie impression on my 
memory is that it has twice the surface of 
Sunapee lake. The main channel leading to 
it from the strait opens from the southward, 
— broad, deep, and easy to navigate. There is 
another channel from the eastward, narrower 
and less useful. The shores of this distant 
bay are rocky elevations of moderate height, 
rising abruptly from the water's edge, or 
marshy lowland. Much of the lowland and 
some of the upland is covered with soft moss 
so deep that walking in any direction is diffi- 
cult. One considerable stream — the River 
an Saumon — finds its way into Bonne Espe- 
rance bay through a rocky opening, and a 
fiord two miles long in tlie northern shore. 



148 . Sixty Years in Coiicord. 

Connected with Bonne Esperance bay, by 
channels within the isLands, is another equal- 
ly spacious, called on the old charts Esqui- 
maux bay. Into this flows a river also called 
the Esquimaux, sometimes the Styx, which 
really is, I think, St. Paul's river. 

There is near the shore nothing like what 
we call woodland. The few spruces, birches, 
and firs which grow are dwarfed to the mere 
height of a man's elbow. Where there is soil 
it is thin and sandy, capable of producing in 
the short summer of that latitude nothing of 
much value to man or beast. Grass grows in 
sheltered places, and a few strawberries are 
found, not like the delicious ones abundant 
on the Upper Saguenaj^ There are also 
raspberries, blueberries, stunted and bitter, 
and an abundance of what the fishermen call 
baked apples, a name given in Labrador to 
the fruit of tlie Ruhus Chamceiyioi'us^ or cloud- 
berry. It grows profusely at the top of little 
plants as tall as a shoot of penn^^royal, each 
stalk producing a berry. This berry, as it de- 
velops, is first greenish white, then red, and 
when ripe it takes an amber shade. It is then 
about the size and shape of a blackberry, and 
tastes like a baked sweet apple. When ripe, 
and also during the state of redness, this fruit 
is a welcome addition to the food served on a 



Perso)ial Recollections. 149 

fishing vessel. On the schooner that I knew, 
the cook's galley was most prolific of fried 
codfish and boiled potatoes. Other culi- 
nar}' achievements came forth occasionally, 
such as baked beans, eggs of the murre or 
foolish guillemot,* cod's head chowder, and 
*' gundy," a mj^sterious compound of hard 
bread and molasses, of whicli a small quan- 
tity lasted a long time. This dainty is said 
to be not yet unknown at sea. On a great 
occasion, which may have been tlie Fourth 
of July, the cook produced a dried-apple pie 
and a sheet of gingerbread. It may not be 
opportune to dwell thus on affairs of the 
kitchen, but the hunger of fishermen is pro- 
verbial. 

Further north tlian Bonne Esperance ba}^ 
a kindlier soil produces some potatoes, tur- 
nips, and cabbages, but no grains. At Bron- 
son's station, above Rigolette, a friend of 
mine saw in 1859, growing on the south 
slope of a hill, potatoes, beets, onions, and 
radishes. On Bonne Esperance bay, inex- 
pressively dreary as it must be in winter, a 
few hardy people dwelt in the summer of 
1854. Among them was John Goddard, a 
sturdy Englishman, whose weather-beaten 

* In September, 1836, the schooner *' Martha Jane," of Fall 
River, arrived in Portland with two thousand dozen murre's 
eggs from the coast of Labrador. 



150 Sixty Years in Concord. 

house, on a rocky liarbor island, was kept 
in order by an Indian wife, and defended 
by as fierce a team of Esquimaux dogs as 
could well be collected. Two miles away 
lived John Haywood, and an aged man 
named Chalker, whose daughter Haywood 
married. These people had some nets ex- 
tended for salmon, and kept a few articles, 
such as cloths, powder, and cutlery, for sale 
or for barter; and Goddard dealt in rum, 
which goes everywhere and carries a curse 
with it. 

Away to the northw/ird, or northwestward 
— for the general line of the coast trends in 
the latter direction — at Bradore, Hopedale, 
Henley Harbor, and Batteau Harbor, are or 
were larger settlements of like people. There 
were also a few Moravian mission-stations ; 
and all along the coast was traffic in furs, oil, 
and fish. The means of life were wrung from 
the stormy sea, or from the lonely interior 
wilderness, where the people dwelt in winter. 
During some recent years the fisheries have 
failed, and succor of the Newfoundland gov- 
ernment has been necessary. The coast is 
not now a resort for New England fisher- 
men, although last year (1890) the fishing is 
reported to have been excellent. There was 
a long series of 3'ears when the codfisheries 



l^ersonal Mecolh'cfions. 151 

on this coast were abundant in their yield. 
A Boston shii^master, Frederick Nickerson. 
now dead, told me a dozen or more years 
ago, that when he was a boy, probably about 
1840, he was on the Labrador coast in a large 
ship from Boston, which was loaded with 
salted and dried codfish bought on the coast, 
for which a good sale was found in Spain 
and r^ortugal, those Catholic countries being- 
great markets for fish. Such voyages in such 
ships were not uncommon then; but it must 
be rare, indeed, that a square-rigged vessel is 
now seen on that lonely shore beyond Belle- 
isle, though ships of the Hudson Bay Com- 
pany continue to make annual voyages to 
York Factory. At the time of which I am 
writing, small vessels came regularly from 
London and took awa}' the furs, fish, and oil 
accumulated by English agents. 

Hearing occasionally, as Ave did, in the 
interior of New England, of these Labra- 
dor fisheries, and the healthful influences of 
the occupation and the summer climate, it 
seemed wise in the spring of 1854 to try 
whether sucli a radical change of air, scene, 
and mode of life would not be recreative in 
many ways, and my employers were so kind 
as to give me a three-months vacation. I 
determined to go a-fishing, and my railroad 



152 SLrtij Vear^ in Concord. 

friend, Charles H. Ham, declared, to my sur- 
prise, that lie would go too. Therefore we 
repaired to Newbiirjq^ort, where ■ several fish- 
ing schooners owned by Mr. Richard Dodge, 
of Hampton Falls, and Mr. Isaac H. Board- 
man, of Newbury port, made annual voyages 
to Labrador, and took passage in the ''An- 
gelia," a fore-and-aft schooner of one hun- 
dred tons' measurement, whereof William 
Morgan was master and part owner. This 
Captain Morgan dwelt in Seabrook, and 
sailed the seas only in summer: in winter 
he was a follower of St. Crispin. Many of 
the crew miglit be styled web-footed shoe- 
makers, not being sailors of much experi- 
ence ; in fact, we had only one man on board, 
the mate, John Daley, who could have passed 
for an able seaman. He took pride in relat- 
ing how he placed a gilt star at the top of 
the maintopgallantmast of the famous ship 
" Dreadnauglit," when she was built at New- 
buryport. 

My friend and myself set out as passen- 
gers, agreeing to pay fift}^ dollars each as pas- 
sage money for the round trip; and there was 
another fellow in the cabin, from Newmarket. 
Contrary winds kept our schooner in port 
three days beyond the one appointed for sail- 
ing, and meanwhile we explored Newbury- 



Personal Ree<jUectiotiH. 153 

port, looked at the open churches, wandered 
through the old cemetery, and deciphered 
epitaphs, quaint and curious, — among them 
a queer inscription to a good woman who 
died from " swallowing a pea at her own ta- 
ble, and sweetly breathed her soul away," etc. 
On the ninth of June the ''Angelia" sailed 
away on a course east by south, designed to 
carry her past Cape Sable on the Nova Scotia 
shore. Most people might have supposed, as 
I did, with school-day map in mind, that the 
direction would be northward of east. The 
weather was delightful, many sails were in 
sight, and on the evening of the second day 
Cape Sable was passed. With a fair wind, 
on summer seas, we flew along the Nova 
Scotia and Cape Breton shores, past Sambro 
Head, Halifax, and Louisburg, and on the 
evening of the fourth day turned through 
Millelieu passage into the Gulf of St. Law- 
rence. Here came on the morrow what was 
not so agreeable,— fog and storm ; and a lum- 
ber-laden ship from Quebec, bound to Europe, 
came rather near running us down. Cape 
Forlorn Hope, Cape Ray, and Cape St. George 
were sighted dimly, and on June sixteenth 
refuge from a threatening gale was found in 
the great Bay of Islands on the west shore of 
Newfoundland. 



154 Sixty Yearn in Concord. 

The grandeur of the Bay of Islands will 
some day be more widely known. All the 
navies of the world might float on its impe- 
rial bosom. Its shores are majestic hills. 
Mr. S. G. W. Benjamin, in the " Cruise of 
the 'Alice May,' " printed in the Century 
Magazine for 1884, and afterward in book 
form by D. Appleton & Co., says of it, — 

I never shall forget how Guernsey island 
looked that morning, as the little schooner 
ran under its tremendous cliffs and tacked. 
One thousand feet above us it towered, a ver- 
tical rock, over which the mists drove like 
smoke. Although we were fully a mile from 
it, it fairly seemed but a stone's-throw from 
the ship. This Gibraltar-like rock lies mid- 
way in the channel. Although it is two full 
miles from South Head, it was impossible to 
believe it. The cliffs on each side Avere so 
vast, it was only by timing the distance as 
we tacked from side to side that I could 
credit what the chart and dividers stated. 
But even after I was convinced that it was 
two long miles between the headlands, I 
could not realize it until I had seen the 
heights at all times of the day and in all 
states of the atmosphere. 

After struggling at her task all the morn- 
ing, the "Alice May " finally reached into 
the Bay of Islands, and came abreast of Sark 
Harbor. The sun came out, the clouds rolled 
away, and the magnificent scenery of the Bay 
of Islands lay around us. The coast scenery 



Pe7'S0}ial Recollections. 155 

of the world offers few prospects more grand, 
jnore varied, more eiichantiiigly beautiful than 
this. Certainly on the Atlantic coast of North 
America its equal is not to be found. 

The Bay of Islands is about twelve miles 
square. Its entrance is guarded by Guern- 
sey, Pearl, and Tweed islands, which are all 
exceedinglj^ loft}-. Opposite Gnernse}^ is 
Sark mountain ; it is isolated, and rises one 
thousand three hundred and six feet, ter- 
minating in what is called South Head. 
Adjoining Sark mountain is Sark harbor, a 
deep, narrow, and most romantic cove, al- 
most enclosed by overhanging, densely wood- 
ed crags, offering safe anchorage, but liable 
to furious squalls. Eastward of this opens a 
lovely bay called York harbor, protected by 
a low, wooded isle. This delicious sheet of 
water is dominated on the east by the sub- 
lime grandeur of Blomidon, which terminates 
one of the coast ranges. Blomidon is two 
thousand and forty-three feet high, and is 
crowned with an overhanging rampart of 
rock, which abuts on a nearly vertical slope 
that plunges fifteen hundred feet. In one 
spot the crags take the form of an enormous 
eagle's claw burying its talons in the side of 
the mountain. From the summit a waterfall 
slips over the edge of the cliff, and dangles 
downward like a flexible band of silver, 
until lost in impenetrable forests which 
clothe the ba«e of Blomidon. These forests 
form one of the most remarkable features of 
the Bay of Islands. The southern side of 
the bay is a mass of tangled woods, gener- 



156 Sixty Years in Concord. 

ally spruce, birch, and fir, interlocking their 
boiiglis, and intertwined by an almost impen- 
etrable thicket. There are tracts in that sol- 
itude where the axe has never rung since the 
creation. Bear, deer, beaver, partridges, and 
hare abound in these woods. The flanking 
ranges of Blomidon are wild in form, present- 
ing abrupt peaks springing out of the woods, 
and valleys bathed in delicate hues. Com- 
parisons are considered odious, but I could 
not help comparing this part of the shores of 
tlie bay to the shores of the Clyde and the 
adjoining Trosachs. 

The southern side of the Bay of Islands is 
lined with lofty ranges of precipices, more 
bare than those already described, but rival- 
ling them in beauty. Their stern and sterile 
character reall}^ enhances tlie loveliness of 
the tints in which an afternoon light suf- 
fuses them. They are clear cut in outline, 
and rose gray and tender purple in color. 
Frequently among the higher crags of 
tliese mountains of Newfoundland patches 
of snow, many acres in extent, were seen. 
We were assured that this snow never leaves 
these spots, where it lies even in midsum- 
mer thirty to fifty feet deep at no greater 
altitude than fifteen hundred feet above the 
sea. The north shore is cleft by wonderful 
fiords called the North and South Arms. 
The cliffs which enclose them rise perpendic- 
ularly from the Avater for many hundred feet. 

About the centre of the bay lies Harbor 
island. We headed for it, proposing to find 
an ancliorage there, the water elsewhere be- 



Personal Recollections. 157 

iug generally of great depth. The full moon 
arose superbly while we were drifting in the 
channel between Harbor island and Blomi- 
don, and we finally anchored near French- 
man's cove, at the foot of this sublime moun- 
tain. We seemed to be in a fabled region. 
The scenery we liad seen during tlie day pro- 
duced such impressions of grandeur and pri- 
meval solitude, that I should not have been 
in the least surprised if gigantic cyclopean 
beings had waded out from the vast over- 
hanging forests which draped the cliffs under 
which our little ship was anchored. 

The following day opened calm and lovely. 
Far away a number of schooners could be 
seen at the moutli of the Humber river. It 
was fortunate we saw them there, for it gave 
us an opportunity of gauging the height of 
the cliffs which skirt the bay. Vessels with 
masts ninety feet high were mere white 
specks against the cliffs when miles this side 
of them. We put the helm up, and decided 
to run to the head of navigation on the Hum- 
ber. It was a wild, exciting sail of some 
twenty miles, between lofty shores of novel 
and remarkable loveliness. 

The western and southern coasts of New- 
foundland are a constant source of entangle- 
ment between the English and the French 
governments. The matter is sufficiently 
complicated, various treaties having failed 
to settle the question so that it can stay 
settled. As the matter now stands, it seems 
that the French have a right to put up fish 
stages and temporary huts for summer use 



158 Sixty Years i)i Concord. 

immediately by the water. But they cannot 
erect permanent dwellings, nor are they per- 
mitted to purchase hind unless they become 
British citizens. But while chiimino^ legfis- 
lative and judicial rights at the Bay of Is- 
lands, the English do not dare to give a 
title to land, and it is impossible for any 
one to acquire the fee simple of even enough 
to build upon. 

****** 

Going out of the bay we had a dead beat 
against the breeze to South Head; but the 
da}^ was superb, as if this noble bay wished 
to fix a favorable impression upon the mem- 
ory of the voyagers who had come so far to 
see it. Blomidon soared majestically above 
us, the monarch of that mountain land, 
crowned with a wreath of roseate clouds, 
and the surrounding isles were suffused with 
the glow of a peaceful sunset. The water 
of the Bay of Islands is as blue as that of the 
Mediterranean. In this case it cannot be 
due to a larger proportion of salt, which is the 
cause of the intense hues of the sea in warm 
climates, so it must be attributed to the great 
depth of the Newfoundland bay. As I gazed 
entranced on the lovely scene before me, 1 
was able for the first time to realize, by the 
aid of tlie golden haze veiling the long slopes 
and tumbling steeps, the grandeur of the 
Sierras which inclose the Bay of Islands. 
The silence was intensified by the silvery 
waterfalls dropping from crag to crag many 
hundred feet with an ethereal motion, and 



Personal Recollections. 159 

yet giving forth no echo or sound of their 
dashing, so distant were they from our ship : 
but to the eye they appeared to be only a 
few brief furlongs away. The full moon 
loomed above the mountain-tops, solemn and 
glorious; and in that weird stillness, and 
touched by an awesome feeling creeping over 
us, as if we were alone in all the mysterious 
vastness of an unknown and unexplored re- 
gion, our little schooner, seeming puny as a 
cork-boat, Avas fanned past the Titanic cliffs 
which form the gateway of the bay. It was 
two in the morning. No sound was heard ex- 
cept now and then the low sighing of a pass- 
ing gust through the sails, or the long, low, 
far-away boom of the surf rolling into the 
caves of the implacable cliffs, and reverberat- 
ingr with muffled tlumder down that iron- 
bound coast. 

At the magnificent Bay of Islands we cut 
a supply of stove wood. Snow fell on the 
lieights the night of the seventeenth of June, 
and next day a brook which had its source 
back among the hills was found to be too 
cold for trout-fishing. The woods were 
lonely and trackless. No white man had, 
so we were told, ever crossed the island from 
shore to shore.* A smart little French armed 
cutter, a sort of watch-dog of the fisheries, 
came in during the evening of our arrival. 

* There is now a railroad across the island. 



160 Sixty Years in Concord. 

We held on to this anchorage three days, 
ghid to have escaped tlie tedious storm in 
the Gulf. The cold came down from the 
hill-tops, and it seemed that we had ex- 
changed the air of June for that of Decem- 
ber in New England. Hail fell on our deck 
for hours on the eighteentli, and on the 
nineteenth a man, who died on a schooner 
which had run in like ours to escape the 
gale, was buried in a lonely spot on the 
beach, with only the eternal hills to mark 
his grave. I attempted a pencil drawing of 
an impressive mountain rising out of the 
sea, which has somehow been preserved and 
which is found, by com23arison with illus- 
trations in the Century magazine from whicli 
I have quoted, to be a view of Guernsey 
island. On June twentieth we sailed out of 
this grand haven — very attractive it looked 
as we were leaving it for the rough sea — and 
on that and two following days were tossed 
on the waters of the Gulf, always in sight 
of the snowy Newfoundland hills ; but on 
the morning of the twenty-third, circling by 
an iceberg, a huge crystal mass, skj^ blue, 
streaked with creamy white, we gained the 
bay of Bonne Esperance, fourteen days out 
from Newburyport. 

Under the treaty made with Great Britain 



Personal Recollections. 161 

in 1818, fishermen of the United States have 
the right to fish on the coast and in the bays 
of Labrador, and to hind and cure fish on 
any part of the unoccupied shore. Codfish 
were taken there by two methods. When 
they came in large schools, chasing the cap- 
lin and launce, they were caught by seining ; 
later in the season, when they were scat- 
tered, hooks were used. Trawling was not 
then practised. The success of our crew 
was not equal to their expectation. They 
were less fortunate with the seine than 
either of the crews of five other Newburyport 
schooners lying near us. To the deep-sea 
fishing our Newburyport schooners sent 
every week-day more than twenty boats, 
built in a style formerly and perhaps still 
common at Hampton beach — sharp at either 
end, broad in the centre, carrying fore and 
aft sails, safe in rough water— all painted 
white as a sea-gull's wing, each carrying two 
men. To the same fishing came numerous 
less tidy boats from a dozen Nova Scotia 
and Newfoundland vessels harbored a few 
miles from our anchorage, the crews of 
which did us an ill turn if they found oppor- 
tunity. 

As we had lost a man overboard during 
the voyage, my comrade took a share in 



162 Sixty Yearn in Concord. 

work which occupied some hours dail}'. It 
was delightful to go cruising about the bay, 
and a mistake that we were not provided 
with a boat of our own for longer trips up 
the rivers, but the schooner's yawl was for 
brief periods at our service. In tlie salt Avater 
of the harbor were many fine trout, which, 
as they had silver}^ sides, red spots, and 
square tail, were supposed to be the Sal mo 
fontinalis, but the author of " Game Fish of 
tlie North " calls them Salmo trutta. In the 
*' Poorest and Steam '' they are mentioned as 
Salmo canadensis. Their flesh was as red as 
that of the salmon. No scales for weighing- 
were at hand, but the largest one landed 
during the summer measured eighteen inches 
in length, and ten inches at its largest cir- 
cumference. One much larger was struck, 
but escaped, carrying off a hook, as big fish 
in angler's stories are apt to do. The Esqui- 
maux or St. Paul's river was said to be a 
fine salmon stream, but we had neither rod 
nor flies suitable for taking tliat king of fish. 
Dwellers along the Labrador shore near 
our anchorage had salmon nets set at favor- 
able places. Two miles away were two- 
young men from tlie Isle of Jersey, whose 
net stretched toward Belles Amours at a 
point in the open sea. At one visit, on July 



Personal KccoJlections. 16o 

23, 1 saw them take from the net twelve fine 
salmon weighing from ten to fifteen pounds 
each. How beautiful those fish were, so 
active, so lustrous, so beautifully blue, as 
we looked down upon them through the 
water before they were taken from the 
meshes of the net. Tliose Jerseymen man- 
aged this fishery for a non-resident owner, 
and dwelt in summer in a little cabin by the 
shore. 

Tlie seal destroys many a good salmon, 
taking some out of the nets. There was a 
seal whicli would follow my boat whenever 
I rowed into certain water near our anchor- 
age and attempted to whistle a tune. A 
kinder listener is seldom met, for he kept 
onl}^ about three oars' lengths away. His 
face was as gentle and his eyes as soft as 
those of a little spaniel. In this water was 
a small island, which Jias since been called 
Mary Dodge's island, in honor of a visit by 
a young lady of Hampton Falls. 

There was some shooting as well as fish- 
ing. We had two kegs of powder and plent}' 
of shot, not one tentli of which was used. 
Sea fowl, especially black ducks, were nu- 
merous. One morning, on Caribou island, 
as I went out on the beach, a black duck 
arose from the water's edge and went off up 



164 Sixty Years in Concord. 

the shore agfainst a strono- wind. Half a 
mile away she turned, and came back at 
great speed before the gale. I had never 
shot at an object moving so fast, but held up 
the gun, fired where it seemed likely the bird 
and the shot would meet, and down came 
the duck with a great thump on the beach. 
There was nothing strange about this, except 
that above the rush of the wind I heard dis- 
tinctly tlie shot strike that bird as one hears 
a handful of gravel rattle against a board 
fence. 

There was one singer which gave us songs 
of home ; this was a red-breast robin which 
from a little hill behind our schooner began 
to sing regularly at daybreak, in that high 
latitude about 2 : 30 o'clock. The robin is 
found in summer as far north as Hudson bay. 
The blue jay also goes up there, and, in fact, 
many other of our New England birds. 

There had been a great deal of talk on 
board the " Angelia " about the Esquimaux 
curlew. " Wait until you see the curlew 
about August first," was what the old hands 
said. Unfortunately it was late, the eleventh 
of August, when the advance flocks came on 
their way south, the period of their flight 
being about three weeks. They alighted to 
feed on berries, and were shy, but some sue- 



Personal Recollections. 165 

cess attended our shooting. The curlew is 
not much smaller than a pigeon, with vari- 
egated plumage in soft brown, drab, and 
creamy tints. The naturalist. Pennant, saw 
flocks innumerable on the hills about Chat- 
teau bay from August 9 to September 6, 
when the}^ all disappeared, being on their 
way from their northern breeding-places. 
He says they feed on the Empetrum nigrum 
(the black crowberr}^ which is found also 
among the White Mountains), and are very 
fat and delicious. They arrive at Hudson 
bay in April or early in Ma}^, and breed to 
the north of Albany Fort among the woods. 
They are peculiar to our continent, but are 
rarer than they once were. 

Two days later with flocks of curlew whis- 
tling all around us, the cod having disap- 
peared, Ave left our anchorage and went 
groping along the shore in quest of mack- 
erel, reported to be abundant near Cljecat- 
eca island in Mittanogue bay, about tliirty 
miles south west ward of Bonne Esperance. 
Along this coast the shores are steep, and 
wherever there is water it is safe enough for 
a schooner to go. Following closely a New- 
buryport schooner, the " Louisiana," Captain 
Hewitt, a first-rate master and fisherman, we 
threaded the narrow channels, sometimes no 



166 Sixty Years in Concord. 

wider than twice tlie S(3liooner's length, and 
there was always sufficient water. One of 
the sailors' yarns was about a Newbnryport 
schooner's tacking successfully so near shore 
that a projecting crag knocked a letter out 
of the name on her stern. 

Four days passed at Checateca island and 
no juackerel were taken, so the anchor was 
hoisted and the homeward voyage began. 
Storms beset us again in the Gulf of St. 
Lawrence, and the vessel was buffeted about 
for several days ; at night, when hove to 
under shortened sail, the helm was lashed, 
and, strange as it may seem, all hands turned 
in to sleep. It was curious, too, that a crew 
of fishermen who were in the open air ;dl 
day, frequently soaked through with rain 
and sea-water, were loath to leave a small 
dead-light open to admit air Avhen they were 
asleep. 

In beating through the gulf, Anticosti was 
sighted. A dozen years ago I saw in Boston 
a map of the northern hemisphere on a pro- 
jection which gave stormy, barren Anticosti 
the central place in the western half of the 
globe, and around it were concentric lines to 
show how greatly favored Boston and New 
York were in their nearness to that propi- 
tious isle. This map was a caprice of some 



Personal .Recollections, 167 

enthusiast who was trying to found a colony 
in the wilds of Anticosti. I think such a 
colony was gathered, but, after much priva- 
tion and suffering, tlie families composing it 
were removed by the Canadian government. 
The island is now OAvned by a Parisian man- 
ufacturer of chocolate, who is fond of hunting 
and fishing. 

Off Scatari we took a treuiendous pale 
from the northward, which we feared would 
land the bones of the " Angelia " on that 
grave of ships. Sable island. It gave us no 
time, and left us no sail wherewith to heave 
to, so, without a rag of canvas set, the 
schooner bounded away for her life. Sam 
George, who had been a soldier in Jesse A. 
Gove's company of the New England regi- 
ment in the Mexican war, stood at the wheel 
about midnight, in a blackness that could be 
felt. It was evident that he was frightened, 
for he talked all the time, and his voice was 
gentle as a woman's, — which it usually was 
not. " See how she steers, sir." " One spoke 
of the wheel does it." " Beautiful." " Ah, 
that was a big wave ; but the ' Angelia ' 
knows what she's about," — and so it went on 
till the norther died away, sail was hoisted 
on the little vessel, and her head turned to 
the Avestward. Swearing was then resumed. 



168 Sixty Years in Concord. 

(The last I knew of Sam was about 1866, 
wlien he had just finished doing a little time 
for the state in an institution at Concord, 
and I became his creditor for a sum suffi- 
cient to take him home to the coast.) 

As we were tossing about in a rough sea 
and light wind, a transatlantic steamship 
from New York went by, her bright Avork 
glistening in the sun, and the majesty of her 
sweep through the waves excited our admira- 
tion and envy. We had blown to the south- 
ward of our course, and the captain having 
no means of getting longitude, we were dur- 
ing the last three days of the A^oyage looking 
anxiously for land. It began to be whis- 
pered around that Ave might be far astray, 
even in our latitude, and should bring up on 
the sands of New Jersey ; but on September 
first " Jack " Edmunds, of Chichester, Avho 
had l^een considered the o-reenest man of the 
crew, ncA^er on blue water before, and rather 
homesick all summer, Avas the first to descry 
Cape Ann riglit ahead. When the pilot 
came on board, Ave inquired at once if the 
English and French had taken Sebastopol. 
" No, they have n't, and I hope they Avon't," 
said he. We Avere just fourteen days from 
Labrador. In rude health, browned by sun 
and Avind, and disguised in toggery of the 



Personal Recollections. 169 

sea, we rode to Concord, and might easily 
have escaped the recognition of friends on 
the train. 

During tlie following winter six articles, 
entitled " A Summer in Labrador," were 
printed in the Netc Hcimjoshire Statesman.^ 
the first venture in print of m}^ comrade and 
myself. These were read with some interest 
by our townspeople, so we were assured, and 
Mr. F. J. Ottarson of the Neiv York Tribune 
surprised us by taking some notice of them. 

Among the Concord people who afterward 
visited Labrador were Samuel C. Eastman, 
Cyrus M. Murdock, David A. Warde, 
Thomas W. SteAvart, George VV. Drew, 
Benjamin T. Hutchins, and Joseph Stickney. 
The last named, one of the " coal kings " of 
New York, now sails wherever he chooses in 
his magnificent steam yacht, the " Susque- 
hanna." 

Since the summer of our visit Bonne 
Esperance has gained something in impor- 
tance. It is thie residence of a local magis- 
trate, has an occasional mail in summer, and 
four times in winter over the snow from 
Quebec. Schooners from the St. Lawrence 
river go thither with considerable regularity 
when ice does not prevent. There are a 
chapel and a mission-house, founded by Rev. 



170 Sixty Yearn in Concord. 

C. C. Carpenter, now of Andover, Mass., at 
which missionaries from the United States 
have been stationed. Tliere is some trade 
with the interior, and snfhcient stores of 
needful merchandise. Eno-lish, Canadian, 
and United States money is current. Indians 
— Montagnais and Nascopies — bring their 
furs to market there, and tlie fisheries give 
emplojanent in summer to Canadians, Nova 
Scotiamen, Newfoundhinders, and Jersey 
Islanders. A few goats and cattle are kept^ 
and more comfortable homes exist ; but 
poverty and want prevail generally, both on 
the coast and in the interior. 



X. 

After leaving the Concord Railroad, as 
related in a preceding chapter, some months 
were spent in idleness. A weakness of the 
optic nerves forbade much reading, and there 
was no remunerative employment available 
which did not require good vision. But 
opportunity was taken to go West with my 
friend George E. Todd. We visited Niag- 
ara Falls, Detroit, Chicago, Quincy, and St. 
Louis. We met en route Hon. Walter Har- 
riman, who was '^ stumping" the state of 
Michigan in behalf of James Buchanan, the 
Democratic candidate for the presidency — 
a procedure which he afterward regretted. 
Mr. Todd and I had planned to part in the 
West, and I, alone, visited Jacksonville, 111.^ 
Cincinnati and Zanesville, Ohio. Coming 
home by way of Long Island Sound, I was 
near being drowned in a great storm Avhich, 
on the night of Friday, October 17, over- 
whelmed, shattered, and almost sent to the 
bottom the steamer '* Connecticut " of the 
Norwich line. 

That autumn New Hampshire was an 



172 Sixty Years in Coyieord. 

iictive political volcano. The murderous 
aggressions of slaveholders and their allies 
in Kansas and Nebraska had aroused the 
whole North, especially New England and 
states peopled by New Englanders, and 
John C. Fremont had been put in nomina- 
tion (June 17, 1856) as the Presidential 
candidate of the ylqsy Republican party. 
There is now no doubt that he made a bet- 
ter candidate than he would have made 
President had he been elected, — but New 
England was deeply stirred, and in New 
Hampshire, although she had just then a 
*' favorite son " in the White House, busi- 
ness gave place to public duty. The largest 
flags ever seen were hung across Main street. 
There were mau}^ public meetings in Con- 
cord and its vicinity, and there Avas torch- 
light marching enough to weary a profes- 
sional athlete. There was a great torchlight 
company gathered in Concord which went 
into most of the principal towns of south- 
ern New Hampshire hurrahing for Fremont. 
The torchlight procession which marched in 
Concord on the evening of October 23, 1856, 
under the marshalship of John C. Briggs, 
the engineer and bridge-builder, has never 
been surpassed in its way by anything at- 
tempted here. The party was virtually 



Personal Recollections. 17 '5 

beaten then, for Pennsylvania had just been 
carried by the Democrats (and Jolni W. 
Forney), but did not realize the truth, and 
the parade was a bold, magnificent display, 
aided by the Republicans of Manchester, 
Nashua, and elsewhere. Of the sixty mar- 
shals and assistant marshals who marched 
in the Concord portion of that procession, 
at least the following, twenty-two in num- 
ber, are still (1890) residents of our city: 
Richard H. Ayer, D. C. Allen, Moses H. 
Bradley, Horace A. Brown, George W. 
Brown,* Charles W. Davis, Moody S. Far- 
num, C. Horace Herbert, J. C. A. Hill, Isaac 
A. Hill, James Hazelton, Benjamin A. Kim- 
ball, John Kimball, James L. Mason,* Henry 
McFarland, Lorenzo K. Peacock,* Hiram 
Rolfe, Abial Rolfe, Thomas W. Stewart, 
John H. Stewart, George E. Todd,* and 
Calvin C. Webster. 

This procession was, as I have already in- 
timated, an astonishing demonstration. It 
went over the principal streets, and then 
countermarched in alternate lines in state- 
house park until that square was full to over- 
flowing, beside thousands of men to spare. 
There were illuminated decorations, torches 
the light of which shone far up in the clouds, 

*Died since this was written. 



174 Sixty Years in Concord. 

and the air was full of colored fire dis(?lmrged 
from Roman candles. Amos S. Alexander, a 
3^oung Democratic lawyer, looking on, ex- 
claimed : " Great Scott, if these fellows can 
do this in the face of defeat, what would they 
do with victory in view ! " That and the 
great Harrison-Log Cabin procession of 1840 
are the two local events of that character 
which have left the deepest impression on 
\wj recollection. 

The Fremont campaign failed in its chief 
object (he received one hundred and four- 
teen out of two hundred and ninety-six 
electoral votes), but was after all consider- 
able of a success. Among other results, 
New Hampshire was marshalled on the 
Republican side, and affairs got into train 
for the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860. 
No one was exactly satisfied with the situa- 
tion. An impression was in my mind then 
that because of slavery, and the tolerance of 
frauds on the ballot, trouble for the Republic 
and a possible civil war were not very far 
away. I mentioned this to Mr. George W. 
Bentley of the Worcester & Nashua Rail- 
road, an ardent Buchanan man, v/liom I had 
met on his road as I was coming home from 
the West in October, and he scouted the 
idea. In tlie issue of the Statesman next 



Personal RecollectUmi<. 175 

niter the votes were counted was an article 
which I prepared, entitled " Encouraging- 
Features of tiie Late Election," which, look- 
ing at the files of that newspaper not long- 
ago, I stumbled upon. There was in it some- 
thing which reminded me of tliat foreboding 
of trouble. 

Durincy the followinp- winter I went mucli 
into the northern part of the state on busi- 
ness for the Statesman^ and was almost per- 
suaded to endjark in tlie lumber trade by pur- 
chase of a share in lands and a mill on Gale 
river near Betldehem, being tempted by a 
lonp'inof for out-door life in a healthful re- 
gion. It was fortunate that the bargain was 
not concluded, for the saw-mill, which was 
said to be '' tlie smartest mill in that country," 
did not prove to be a bonanza for its owners, 
of whom John G. Sinclair was one. The in- 
telligent advice of Mr. George McQuesten, 
then of the lumber-dealing firm of Roby & 
McQuesten, of Nashua, who chanced to be in 
that vicinity, was influential in keeping me 
out of the scheme. 

Then we had another earnest political 
campaign, and William Haile of Hinsdale, 
the Republican candidate, was chosen gov- 
ernor in March, 1857. His son is now lieu- 
tenant-governor of Massachusetts. On the 



176 Sixty Years in Concord. 

day after election I started for Chicago to 
find some occupation. My railroad friend 
and Labrador comrade, Charles H. Ham, had 
gone to that cit}^ early in 1856, and taken 
employment in the banking-house of R. K. 
Swift, Bro. & Johnston. I met him there 
during the visit (before referred to) of Mr. 
Todd and myself, and had been in corres- 
pondence with him all winter. Looking over 
a package of letters some days ago, there was 
one dated Nov. 2, 1856, from which I take 
the following extract : 

Fuller has been making a speech on our 
best chair, in the middle of the room, com- 
mencing, 'I have the honor of addressing 
this large and respectable audience,' etc., 
gradually rising into a eulogy on the charms 
of Ophelia, the widow's daughter. I cheered 
him loudly, but he soon exhausted the sub- 
ject, together with his own powers. 

The Fuller thus alluded to was Melville 
W. Fuller, now the chief-justice of tlie 
United States supreme court. I had met 
him during my first visit to Chicago with Mr. 
Todd, and afterw^ard dwelt in the same house 
with him. He was a little chap, with pleas- 
ant features, light brown hair and moustache, 
an easy talker, and an out-and-out Democrat 
in politics. It never occurred to me that he 



Pergonal Recollections. 177 

was to be a very eminent lawyer, and sit on 
the bench of the most important court in 
Christendom. 

The New Hampshire men in Chicago re- 
sorted to the Briggs House on Randolph 
street, where they gave kindly welcome to 
new-comers. It was several days before I 
found employment. Col. Charles G. Ham- 
mond, superintendent of the Chicago, Bur- 
lington i& Quincy Railroad, looked at my 
letters, but nothing came of that. He was 
afterward on the Union Pacific, just before 
myself, but did not please the directors. Mr. 
John F. Tracy of the Rock Island Railroad 
offered a station agency on his line — that of 
Ottawa, 111., I think — if I would Avait. The 
man in it was wrong in some way, and Mr. 
Tracy wanted to effect a settlement of his ac- 
counts before dismissal. But while waiting, 
Walter S. Johnson, superintendent of the 
Chicago & Milwaukee Railroad — "the col- 
onel " he was called — gave me the care of 
that company's steamboat accounts. Two 
steamboats, the " Planet " and the " Travel- 
ler," were in their line on Lake Micliigan, 
plying between Chicago and Milwaukee, 
touching at Waukegan, Kenosha, and Racine 
to keep away hostile water competition. 
The " Planet " w^as larger than the " Trav- 



178 SLvti/ Year^i iu Co)icord. 

eller," and her people liad extravagant ways, 
so she lost money all the season, while the 
" Traveller '* a little more than made good 
the loss. Johnson & Olmstead were the Mil- 
waukee agents ; and George C. Drew, a tall 
man with a long pipe, did the honors at the 
wharf in Chicago. Charles C. Wheeler Avas 
clerk on the " Traveller," and Frederick 
Johnson, the colonel's brother, a novice from 
Vermont, held the fort on the " Planet." 
T. C. Butlin was captain of the " Planet " 
and Barne}^ Sweeney of the " Traveller." 
Butlin became a little elated on the Fourth 
of July, when Deacon Bross of the Clncago 
Trihune^ and a large excursion party, were 
taken out on the lake, and gravely told me 
on the wlieelhouse that he could take that 
multitude across the Atlantic in the 
'• Planet," and she would give better satis- 
faction than any other boat that ever crossed 
the ocean. Considering my experience in 
the " Connecticut " on Long Island Sound 
the year before, I did not agree with him. 
In 1887, thirty years later, I met Captain 
Butlin as president of the Gooderich Steam- 
boat Company in Chicago, but he could not 
remember me. Captain Sweeney was also on 
the wharf, master of a fine propeller. He 
was tlie handiest man on the lake with a 



Personal Recollections. 179 

steamboat. It was said that he brought his 
boat to a landing so softly that the contact 
would barel}^ break an eggshell, and the 
'•'• Traveller '' had the name of being the best 
managed boat out of Chicago. 

Charles C. Wheeler, the clerk of tbe 
" Traveller," continued to get on m the 
world until he l)ecame general superintend- 
ent of the Chicao'o & Northwestern Railwav. 
He and the steward, John Leonard, Avorked 
as faithfully for the interests of that boat as 
if they had owned her. The mate, Frederick 
Pabst, married a daughter of Philip Best, the 
Milwaukee brewer, and after a time inher- 
ited the great brewer3\ The Pabst Brewing 
Company is now one of the largest establish- 
ments of similar character in the world, and 
the faithful mate of the ^' Traveller " no 
longer counts his income at about forty dol- 
lars a month, but is reckoned among the mil- 
lionaires of Wisconsin. 

To relieve the boat clerks 1 did some ser- 
vice on both the " Planet " and the " Trav- 
eller." One night we ran at great speed far 
out of the course to rescue the people on a 
burning propeller, but a passing schooner 
took off the crew before our arrival. The 
lost propeller was loaded partly with freight 
for George Hutchins & Co.,. of Concord. A 



180 Sixty Years in Concord. 

few years afterward, on December 4, 1868, 
Mr. and Mrs. Hutchiiis were lost in the steam- 
boat " United States," which burned after a 
collision on the Ohio river. One year before 
the season of which 1 am writing, the " Trav- 
eller" liad rescued a part of the passengers 
and crew of a burning steamer off Port Wash- 
ington, on which occasion among the lost 
was my railroad friend, Charles F. Gould, 
Avho had been for years ticket-seller at tlie 
Manchester station. 

Among the New Hampshire colony in Chi- 
cago were Andrew J. Wright, formerly a 
conductor on the Northern Railroad ; Tim- 
othy E. Chandler, formerly of Hopkinton, 
who had been a clerk in William W. Esta- 
brook's dry-goods store, the *' Great Eight," 
in Concord, where he filled a place occupied 
not long before by Levi P. Morton, since 
vice-president of the United States ; Horace 
G. and Charles C. Chase, brothers, also for- 
merly of Hopkinton; Charles A. Badger, a 
Warner boy, who went out in 1857, got a 
situation as clerk in the Tremont House, and 
fourteen years afterward walked off the end 
of a swinging, pivoted bridge in the evening, 
and was drowned in the Chicago river ; 
Henry P. Stanwood, from Hopkinton, who 
was a Chicago & Northwestern Railroad man, 



Personal Recollections. 181 

and died in the service of that company in 
San Francisco in 1888; and Benjamin F. 
Qnimby, also from Hopkinton, a money- 
lender and dealer in real estate. Then there 
was Charles L. Epps, from Manchester, Avho 
also wentont in 1857. In 1887, looking ont 
of a car window from a train entering Chi- 
cago, I read on a large building the sign, 
"Charles L. Epps, Malt House." Inquiry 
developed the fact that this Avas the property 
of my old acquaintance, prosperous as all 
hrew^ers and maltsters seem to be. 

The Chicago of the older date (1857) had 
John Wentworth, formerly of Sandwich, for 
mayor, and Nathaniel Sherman Bouton, for- 
merly of Concord, son of Rev. Dr. Bouton, 
was city engineer. The city treasury was in 
rather a lean condition, and it was said that 
certain police court fines were all applied to 
building the Jackson Street bridge, which 
the mayor was anxious to complete. 

Rev. Samuel C. Bartlett, since president of 
Dartmouth college, was pastor of the New 
England church, which was situated on the 
North Side. 

The Chicago of that day, and of this, bear 
little resembhance to each other. The old 
city was built on a lower grade. The streets 
were soft, and at some places sometimes 



182 Sixty Years in Concord. 

impassable. Tlie sidewalks were laid with 
planks, oozy and slippery ; and as the streets 
were being raised to the new grade, a pedes- 
trian nuist walk along for rods with his head 
on about the level of the centre of the street, 
then go u.p steps to the plane of the new 
grade, then in a sJiort distance down again. 

The ways for travellers between the North, 
South, and West divisions of the city were 
very inadequate. At a somewhat later 
period the embryo Chief Justice Fuller was 
elected to the state legislature, and favored 
the passage of a bill to incorporate the 
Wabash Railwa}^ Company, which would 
have given the grantees power to gridiron 
Chicago with street railways. The character 
of the charter was, however, discovered, a 
hnbbub was made in Chicago, and the bill 
stopped, perhaps as much because of the 
quiet, unobtrusive way in wliich it had been 
promoted as for any better reason. 

There were a few good buildings in the 
business portion of the city, and handsome 
residences on Michigan and Wabash avenues, 
but Chicago was probably inferior in appear- 
ance to the Omaha of to-day. 

Our steamboat office was on River street, 
over Durant Brothers' wdiolesale grocery, and 
was always redolent of hams and sugar. It 



Pergonal Recollections. 188 

was a rude place, not half furnished, and 
steamboat and railroad tickets enough for a 
duke's ransom lay in piles on the floor all 
sunnuer, but none was lost. The exact lo- 
cality was not clear to me in 1887, so much 
had the vicinity changed. It was not far 
from the site of old Fort Dearborn. 

The small brick house where I dwelt was 
on Adams street, between Clark and State. 
The site was a lot of the regular city depth, 
worth at that time perha|)s f 75 a front foot, 
and noAv about f3,000 a front foot, or, for 
the lot alone, |8,750 then and 1150,000 now. 
The street was quiet, and given up to small 
houses. Now the whole square between 
Adams, Dearborn, and State streets is occu- 
pied by the Fair building — a great shop 
under one roof and one management. The 
land on which it stands is valued at 
13,000,000. The First National Bank, one 
of the largest banking institutions in the 
world, with $30,000,000 deposits, is a square 
and a half away. The present custom-house 
and post-office is a square and a half west ; 
the Palmer House, a square and a half north- 
east. Kinsley's, the great restaurant of the 
city, is within a square. The Grand Pacific 
Hotel is two squares southwest; the Union 
League Club, a square and a half southwest ; 



184 Sixty Years in Concord. 

and the Auditorium is a square and a half 
east and three squares south. The Board of 
Ti'ade is three squares southwest. There 
are a dozen banks witliin two minutes' walk, 
and both the Tribune and Inter-Ocean offices 
are Avithin two and a half squares of it. 

The financial cyclone of 1857 struck Chi- 
cago most unexpectedl3^ It toppled over 
the bank of R. K. Swift, Bro. & Johnston, 
where my friend Ham was employed, like a 
house of cards, and the small-fry dealers in 
money hastened to put up their shutters. 
Swift liad mau}^ depositors of small savings, 
whose funds were subject to withdrawal 
without notice, and the demands of these 
people upset the bank. There had been for 
a considerable time a premium of about three 
per cent, on the notes of Eastern banks, while 
those of some Western and all Southern 
state banks had to be sold or exchanged at a 
discount. There were man}- counterfeits in 
circulation. A fellow came on board the 
" Planet " in Milwaukee, and offered me 
three such in succession in exchange for a 
ticket to Chicago. Being told that if he had 
current money it Avould be wise to produce 
it, he replied with threats to thrash me. By 
and by he discovered that he had good money 
wherewith to pay his fare. 



Persoial Recollections. 1H5 

About this money panic of 1857, Mr. Sam 
Ward, long a famous lobb3^ist in Washington, 
once related in my hearing the following 
occurrence : He said that he was a member 
of the firm of Prime, Ward & King, bankers 
of New York, and that late in the fifties they 
had an order from France to invest $250,000 
ii> annuities on the life of a French gentle- 
man well advanced in life. The order was 
accompanied by all necessary information, 
authenticated by consular certificates, etc., and 
was executed. Not long afterward came an- 
other like remittance and order for annuities 
on the life of the same man. This command 
too was executed, though not so easily, and 
then came a third one of the same kind. The 
last went pretty hard, for the American trust 
companies began to be suspicious, and sug- 
gested that the Frenchman was a Wandering 
Jew, to live forever ; but still it was done. 
Time went on, and intelligence came that 
the Frenchman had fallen down stairs and 
broken his leg, whereupon the actuaries in 
New York assembled and partook of a good 
dinner, thinking they w^ould soon be rid of 
him and their obligations to him. But he 
recovered, and held on bravely, drawing his 
annuities " with perfect impunity and great 
boldness," as a fertile imagination once de- 



186 Sixty Years in ConcorcL 

.scribed the way smuggling was done through 
Concord. Mr. Ward investigated the trans- 
action when he was afterward in Europe, 
and found his client to be a man who had 
invested all his means in buying annuities in 
the United States, and had heavily insured 
liis life in England. He was living on his 
annuities, less the annual premiums paid for 
life insurance, expecting that at his death 
the life insurance payments Avould replace 
his fortune to his heirs. This affair has this 
much connection with the panic of 1857 : 
The Ohio Life & Trust Company of New 
York was one of the companies which granted 
the annuities. The cash which that company 
received from the old Frenchman kept it 
alive beyond its time, and Avhen it finally 
did fail, it precipitated the disasters of that 
disastrous year. 

In the autumn our boats went into winter 
quarters at Milwaukee, and it was settled 
that the season had not been a successful 
one. The boats together had neither made 
nor lost money. Mr. M. L. Sjdvcs, repre- 
senting tlie directors, came out from New 
York to see what was the matter. He was 
ver}^ bright and quick at figures, and soon 
located the difficulty in the great cost of 
sailing the " Planet." She was too big for 



Personal Becollections. 18T 

the business, and was not prudently con- 
ducted. Mr. Sykes was veiy kind, and next 
year, when he had succeeded ''the colonel" 
as superintendent of the Chicago & Milwau- 
kee road, sent for nie, but meanwhile I had 
become settled in business in Concord. I 
had formed no special attachment to Chi- 
cago, and my regard for Concord had in no 
way diminished. All the while I had been 
away I had longed for the New England 
hills and woods where the ruffed grouse 
dwells, and where the clear, swift, cool 
streams run. I had written from Chicago 
some letters for the Statesman^ and my father 
thought I could help him here : so, with no 
conception of the possibilities about to open 
to railroad men in the Great West, I bouglit 
a one-third interest in the Statesman estab- 
lishment, for which I paid $5,000, a sum 
which looked quite large, about half of which 
was borrowed money. 



XI. 

The Netv Hampshire Statesman, with which 
1113^ father was intimately connected for pe- 
riods amounting in all to forty years, was 
founded by Luther Roby. The first number 
thereof, dated January 6, 1823, when Con- 
cord had about three thousand inhabitants, 
was printed in the southwest first-floor room 
of the Carrigain house, now the residence 
of Dr. William G. Carter. Its first editor, 
Amos A. Parker, Esq., is still living (1891) 
in Fitzwilliam, at the age of ninety-nine 
years. As to the birthplace of the news- 
paper, he writes, clearly and distinctly, 
under date of Nov. 19, 1890, ^' I state posi- 
tively, for I know, the first number of the 
JVetv IfamjJsJiire Statesman was printed in 
the Carrigain building, at the north end of 
Concord street." This is like a voice out 
of the long buried past — a letter from a man 
who was living a centur}^ ago. 

Shortly after its birth the Statesman went 
across the street to be printed in a two-story 
wooden building on the northeast corner of 
the lot where my home now is. No. 203 North 



Personal Recollections. 189 

Main street. I remember this unpretending 
building after about 1840. It was then 
owned by Gen. Robert Davis, and during 
its occupancy of the site mentioned was once 
kept in part as a restaurant. On the night 
of Oct. 3, 1850, it w^as shattered by a mob 
of young fellows who claimed to be deliver- 
ing the North End from wine, women, and 
song. 

The third dwelling-place of the Statesman 
was the second floor of the Dr. Ezra Carter 
house, corner of North Main and Washing- 
ton streets. It went down town in 1825 to 
a primitive building which stood where is 
now Phoenix block ; and on Feb. U, 1826, 
when my father bought a quarter interest in 
it for 8500, its habitation was a long third- 
story apartment for printing and a second 
floor room for a business office in Farley's, 
which stood where is now the Exchange 
building. There were various subsequent 
changes of location, all mentioned in the 
Statesman of May 31, 1867, and changes 
also among the partners in ownership. My 
father seems to have invested in it i500 
more, and labored zealously in its behalf un- 
til Jan. 1, 1834, when, having in eight years 
gained only $1,500 above the expenses of his 
frugal living, he parted with his share. Ten 



190 Sixty Yeai'S in Concord. 

years letter, in July, 1844, when the States- 
man was owned by George O. Odlin & Co., 
he became its editor, keeping sturdily alive, 
liowever, his own separate printing establish- 
ment where tlie Mr. Odlin above mentioned 
had been an apprentice. His connection as 
editor seems to have ceased before 1850, for 
in that year he visited Europe ; but in 1851 
he and Mr. George E. Jenks, who had 
become his partner in 1850, bought the 
Statesman for $4,500. They were urged to 
make, this purchase by many prominent 
Whigs of New Hampshire, and some of 
Massachusetts. The paper, for a little time 
under Mr. Odlin's editorial care, had been 
attacking Daniel Webster, one of the charges 
being laxity in affairs of personal finance. 
T think Mr. Webster had not paid his sub- 
scription to the Stafesfnan promptly, and 
Odlin & Co. threatened to attach his car- 
riage, which was undergoing repairs at the 
factory of L. Downing & Sons. These 
attacks, printed in a newspaper so near Mr. 
Webster's birthplace, exasperated his friends, 
and they were anxious to effect an alteration 
in this respect. A few New Hampshire 
Whigs loaned McFarland & Jenks. about 
$1,200, taking notes therefor. Most of these 
notes were left in the custody of a trustee. 



Personal Me collect io)is. 191 

and ill due time all were paid with interest — 
a result which T suppose the lenders may not 
have expected. Mr. Webster told my father 
on some after occasion that this change in 
ownership was gratifying to him. 

The Statesman left its lofty quarters in 
Low's (now Woodward's) building, and went 
to an equally high floor in Stickney's block 
in front of tlie state-house, occupying there 
the width of two store fronts. Driven 
thence at much loss by the great fire of 
1851, recourse was had to the erection on 
leased land of a one-story building (still 
standing near the gas-holder east of the junc- 
tion of Main and School streets), for which 1 
drew the paper plans at my father's request. 
Philip Watson built it for 1400. 

This new situation, if not among the best, 
was the best to be had just then, and the 
ground rent was fifty dollars a year. It was 
soon discovered from experience that the 
misfortune of the fire brouglit with it at 
least one compensation, — proof that a print- 
ing-office need not always be in upper apart- 
ments. In January, 1855, Concord had 
about nine thousand inhabitants, and had 
adopted a city charter two y ears. bef ore ; but 
so lately as 1859 there were but one hundred 
and sevent3^-two persons and firms who paid 



192 Sixty Years in Concord. 

an annual tax of $50 and upward. Having 
had a fair degree, of prosperity, the States- 
man went in 1855 to the first floor and base- 
ment of the south section of the new Phoenix 
block, where its annual rent was #500. The 
apartments in Phoenix block were large 
enough at the outset, and the location Avas 
and continued to be satisfactory; still, look- 
ing in there a few days ago it was hard to 
realize that the growing business was kept 
for twelve long years within such narrow 
limits. 

When I joined the office we divided the 
duties of proprietorship. My father did 
nearly all the editorial writing, saw the man- 
uscripts for the newspaper put in type, went 
over book and pamphlet manuscripts, cor- 
recting them for the compositors, read a 
good share of the proofs, and maintained a 
general oversight of our " department of the 
interior." This was usually enough to keep 
one busy, and I never knew a more punctual 
and industrious man. If he had nothing* 
else at hand, he found a composing stick, 
and took a place among the compositors. 

Mr. Jenks had the job printing in charge, 
estimated the cost of work offered for our 
undertaking, read proofs, and cared for 
mechanical details. He had a taste for 



Personal Mecollections. 193 

statistics, and a Political Manual for New 
Hampshire, begun in 1857 as a small affair 
for legislative use, by its gradual enlarge- 
ments gradually took possession of a large 
portion of his time. 

My work was mainly that of the business 
office, although I did some paragraphing, and 
made an occasional longer article. There 
had been no professors of journalism in our 
Concord schools, but my father gave me this 
one helpful hint, as he applied the blue pen- 
cil to some manuscript : " It is a rule as old 
as Blair's Rhetoric never to end a sentence 
with a preposition." Blair's Rhetoric I have 
never seen, but there are sentences penned 
by William Pitt and Lord Macaulay which 
end with prepositions. 

A Concord lawyer, now dead, once re- 
marked in my hearing that he believed he 
could produce good newspaper articles if he 
could only think of something to write 
about : whicli was equivalent to saying he 
could write good articles if lie ''only liad a 
mind to." 

The jStatesmait had become, before 1858, 
the favorite local newspaper. Its editor 
being by nature devoted to his native town, 
did not fail to write at good length of what 
concerned its interests. There was enougli 

13 



194 Sixty Years in Concord. 

of politics about it to satisfy a fair-minded 
Whig or Republican, and little or no vitu- 
peration, for which my father had no taste. 
It was a clean, handsoniel3^-printed news- 
paper, an agreeable weekly visitor to the 
feminine portion of its readers, helpful in a 
religious waj^ true to its party without ser- 
vility, and loyal without liesitation during 
tlie War of the Rebellion. There was a 
more distinct personality in it tlian there can 
be in papers that depend on purchased ster- 
eotype plates for their selected reading. 

Perhaps I cannot better illustrate what 
kind of a newspaper i\\Q- Statesman was to its 
local readers than by introducing here, as if 
this were a scrap-book, a few transcripts from 
its files for the period with whicli I am deal- 
ing, excluding for various reasons any of the 
lono-er and weiofhtier articles. 

[May 15, 1858.] 

To decorate our office front window a 
little, we have placed therein an attractive 
])icture of the famous clipper ship "Dread- 
naught," which has run from New York to 
Liverpool in twelve days and a half, and two 
others, one entitled " On the dock at Liver- 
pool," the other " On the dock at Boston." 
One of the latter represents "a fine old Irish 
gentleman " about starting for America, and 
tlie other shows the same individual, having 



Personal Recollections. 195 

bettered himself greatly, just about to sail 
on his return voyage. One rainy clay last 
week quite a squad of persons were together 
looking at these pictures, and we were un- 
certain how they would be received until 
the hearty remark, "• Faix! hoys^ if we only 
do as tvell as that chap has done,^^ uttered 
with an unmistakable Dublin accent, assured 
us liow well they Avere appreciated. 

[May 29, 1858.] 

Some humorous writer has an ample held 
by gleaning in which to make up a very 
diverting account of those annual conven- 
tions — the Anniversaries of New Hampshire 
Railroads. These meetings are frequenth 
ushered in by a terril)le tempest, and, with 
much unanimit}^ terminate in the most pro- 
found peace. For a month preceding the 
long-awaited da}^, the very atmosphere is 
often redolent of lire and brimstone. The 
different parties charge the Manchester 3Iir- 
ror up to the muzzle with missiles, which 
those who forged them thought w^ould carry 
death into the enemy's camji. Attacks, 
replies, rejoinders, and surrejoinders multi- 
ply like weeds in the garden of a laz}' 
printer, and the public become impressed 
with the belief that sundry presidents, 
directors, and superintendents will bite the 
dust as soon as the enraged stockholders 
have opportunity to make their power felt 
at the polls. But notwithstanding all these 
furious newspaper denunciations — attacks, 
replies, rejoinders, and surrejoinders ; in 



196 Sixty Years in Concord. 

spite of all the caucusing and clamoring, all 
tlie preparation of copious supplies of printed 
tickets, got up in various forms, with trans- 
positions of names, the " old board " is 
usually reelected. By what sorcery is this 
done ? Who is the Palinurus that pilots 
these boards of directors throuo^li boisterous 
channels into pacific seas ? Who allays 
these all-engulfmg waves, white with foam 
before the annual meetings, but calmed into 
the repose of a summer pond when the day 
of conflict comes, so that anniversaries whicli 
promised to be vindictive and furious, pass 
off like a Quaker meeting, to the surprise of 
the public, and the disappointment of Boston 
news reporters? Can any mortal account 
for these things ? 

[July 10, 185S.] 

Mr. Solon Gould, one of the inflexible 
Democrats of Ward Four in tliis city, made 
a great mistake on the Fourth, which greater 
Democrats than he mioht liave made. Solon 

o 

put on his high-heeled boots after dinner, 
and walked down town to see what was 
in the wind. He happened in at the State 
House yard just when our Congressman, 
Hon. Mason W. Tappan, Avas reading the 
Declaration of Independence. Now Solon is 
a better Democrat than ever the great LaAv- 
giver of Athens was. but to say that his per- 
ceptions are, at all hours of the day, as keen 
as those of the wise man for whom he w^as 
named, would be a reflection which it is not 



Personal EecoUectiojis. 197 

proper to cast, even upon a human being 
long since numbered among the dead. Solon 
not only happened in as Mr. Tappan was 
reading Rufus Choate's "bundle of glitter- 
ingr generalities," but exactly as the orator 
was in that part where they put it on heavy 
on poor old George TIT, and among other 
bad deeds charge the King with making 
'' judges dependent on his will alone for the 
tenure of tlieir offices, and the amount of 
their salaries," and of -creating " a multitude 
of new offices, and sending hither a swarm 
of new officers, to harass our people and eat 
out their substance." The object of these 
summary reproofs Solon took to be his friend 
James Buchanan instead of old George III, 
and, after denouncing the celebration as a 
Black Republican affair, wheeled on his heel, 
and left in profound disgust. 

[July 10, 1858.] 

The State House after Adjourn- 
jMENT. We had the satisfaction, the other 
day, to conduct several newspaper friends 
over a portion of the city, and to exhibit to 
them such '' lions " as they expressed a de- 
sire to see. Tliis is a duty, the discharge 
of which is particularly pleasing, unless 
guests indicate a wish to see lions which 
are no lions at all. We get along with out- 
of-town friends very well when the stroll is 
in certain directions and beneath wealthy 
arboreal shades ; but nothing more com- 
pletel}^ brings up a Concord man all stand- 



198 Sixty Years in Oo7ico7'd. 

ing than u request to be sliown the interior 
of the state bouse. We make excellent work 
of it along Main and State streets, and the 
streets which cross those two thoroughfares ; 
go with much satisfaction to the Pond hill, 
and obtain the delightful view thence over 
the island to and beyond East Concord ; 
point for admiration to that prince among 
noble elms, the one fronting the residence 
of Samuel Coffin, and tliose ancestral ones 
fronting the residences of Joseph B. Walker 
and Charles Smart; look with our friends 
over a large portion of the city and into ad- 
jacent towns from the brow of Holt hill ; 
go over the Whale's Back, and take a turn 
to the Hospital pond, and thence to the Asy- 
lum ; take a pull through the new settle- 
ments in Wards Five, Six, and Seven ; de- 
bouch into Main street at the South End, 
and come up under the elms and maples that 
skirt the west side of the avenue from the 
dwelling of Lewis Downing (not forgetting 
the heaven-aspiring, symmetrical elm opposite 
the residence of that gentleman) to the home 
of Joseph A. Gilmore ; we make, let it be re- 
peated, very gratifying progress when in this 
line of lion showing ; but when at last the 
word is pronounced that the guest or guests 
will consider a visit at the capital of New 
Hampshire in the light of the play of " Ham- 
let," with the part of Hamlet omitted unless 
treated to an interior view of the state house, 
we are instantly depressed to a point away 
below zero. 



Personal Reeollectloni<. 199 

And into this freezing sitnation our friends 
from Portsmouth, Salem, Lowell, and else- 
where, threw us last Wednesday. We had 
all been peram})ulating the city, and finally 
brought up about lialf-past nine a. m. in the 
delicious shade on the Avestern steps of the 
State House. We all sat there some minutes, 
discoursing of the numbers of different legis- 
latures, the number of voters necessary to 
choose one and each additional representa- 
tive in this state ; of the district system as 
now existing in Massachusetts, of our very 
redundant house and our ver}^ diminutive 
senate, when some one uttered the appalling- 
words, '-''Come^ isn^t it about time to he r/oinr/ 
inside the State House f " 

Well, we went in, and never with 

more suffusing, burning mortification. We 
have known these twenty odd years that the 
interior of the State House is anything but 
pleasing to people conversant with elegant 
public structures, and have not for a long 
time, of our own mere motion, gone within 
it in company with out of town friends, but 
on this occasion its appearance was anything 
but pleasing. It is absolutely unbecoming* 
to a respectable Commonwealth. Thirt}^- 
nine years' service, and, we believe, no in- 
terior repairs — not so much as a coat of paint 
— has reduced it to a dirty and unwholesome 
appearance, and with the Republican party 
pursued like a hare upon the mountains, and 
the foolish cry of " Extravagance " uttered 
against it by every yelping foe, the prospect 



200 Sixty Years in Concord. 

is that unless the State House is burned or 
demolished by an eartliquake, it will become 
mud] worse before it is an}^ better. 

[May 28, 1859.] 

About fort}' or forty-five years ago the 
Columbian hotel was in the form of a long, 
one-story baking establishment, conducted 
by Major Peter Rol)inson, and from it issued 
the grateful odor of new gingerbread, to tan- 
talize the hungry crowd of boys and girls 
who wheeled around the corner of Mr. Will- 
iam Low's house (corner of Main and School 
streets) on their way up town from the scho- 
lastic den where they had been confined all 
the forenoon. The bake-house was made 
into a two-story building, and opened for 
the reception of the travelling public about 
thirt3^-eight 3'ears ago by Mr. John P. Gass. 
About 1828 it was kept by Gen. John Wil- 
son, from Lancaster, who brought thither 
our now thriving and benevolent fellow- 
citizen, Mr. Nathaniel White. As this latter 
gentleman has acquired all his means by 
honorable ends, it is the more creditable to 
him to say that he commenced as a boy in 
the Columbian, and has been upon the rise 
ever since. Although many years amidst 
tobacco smoke and ardent spirits, he refrained 
from their use, and thus escaped the rock on 
Avhich many make shipwreck. 

The Columbian Avas in those da3^s an inn 
where several stage-coaches put up, and 
there our respected fellow-citizen, Mr. Peter 



Perso)ial Recollect ions, 201 

Dudley, made his tarry ing-place when he 
commenced as a driver into Concord from 
Plymouth. During the period Avhen the 
militia of New Hampshire was in high 
feather, this tavern was tJie headquarters 
of the Columbian Artillery, a company Avhich 
for several years was composed largel}" of 
journeymen and apprentices to the printing 
business in Concord ; a corps of no mean 
repute, which made some stir on the muster 
lields of the Eleventh Regiment. A^acancies 
were filled, and new commissions wet, in the 
Columbian hotel. Looking back upon those 
times, the wonder is that escapes were made 
from the confirmed habits apt to follow such 
procedures. Three drams at a half-day train- 
ing were not uncommon in the da3's of the 
Columbian Artillery, — a drink at the gun- 
house near the site of the Unitarian church, 
a drink on Pond hill brought from the 
Washington tavern, and a final drink, about 
T p. m., at the official hotel of the compau}- — 
the Columbian. 

The Columbian Artillery, the Concord 
Light Infantry, the Troop, and the Bow and 
Borough Riflemen were the uniformed com- 
panies of the Eleventh Regiment, which had 
May trainings and one annual autumn 
encampment in this or some neighboring- 
town. The artillerj^men used but one can- 
non, which was manoeuvred by drag-ropes. 
The two-days encampment wound up with a 



202 Sixty Years in Concord. 

sham fight, wlien the noisiest and smelliest 
kind of gunpowder was burned, but no harm 
done, unless in the excitement of battle some 
exhilarated warrior, like Alexander Salter 
Lear of Bow, shot away the ramrod of his 
old flintlock musket. My youthful soul 
was filled with horror and dismay by the 
racket of tliose sham fio-hts. 



t> 



[June 25, 1859.] " 

Pluck. — Certain fighting characters once 
took a big oath tliat they would neither eat 
nor drink until they had slain the Apostle 
Paul. What effect this rash vow had upon 
the diaphragms of those who made it, the 
record does not state. The probabilities are 
that the oath was made void, or the vaga- 
bonds went hungry awhile, for the apostle 
outlived their fur}^ and did nuich good ser- 
vice afterward. 

There are lots of New Hampshire Demo- 
crats, the I'egular leaders and drum-majors 
of the party, who, we believe, have made a 
solemn vow that they will not come to Con- 
cord during the month of June so long as 
the Black Republicans are in power. This 
is a very rash vow. It keeps our Democratic 
friends out of the pale of that civilization, 
good breeding, and other healing influences 
diffused here wlien the wisdom of the state 
is assembled in council. 

This article was suggested by seeing our 
old friend. Gen. Israel Hunt, of Nashua, in 



Personal Uecollections. 20-3 

the north lobby of the state-house hist week 
— a stray leaf from a gilt-edged volume. The 
general manifests common sense by coming- 
to Concord every year, and never departing- 
until he has looked in upon the legislature, 
probably to bestow upon it his best wishes 
that the Republicans wdll make none but 
o-ood laws, and rule the state well. There is 
both pluck and philosophy in this procedure, 
which is worthy of all imitation by his Dem- 
ocratic brethren. May he live a score of 
years, to come up and bestow his annual 
benediction on the Republican party in 
power. 

[March 3, I860.] 

ABitAHAM Lincoln in PHa:Nix Hall. — 

Mr. Lincoln addressed the people for an hour 
and a half in one of the most pow^erful, logi- 
cal, and compact speeches to which it was 
ever our fortune to listen ; an argument 
against the system of slavery, and in defence 
of the position of the Republican party, from 
the deductions of which no reasonable man 
could possibly escape. He fortified every 
position assumed by proofs which it is im- 
possible to gainsay, and while his speech 
was at intervals enlivened by remarks which 
elicited applause at the expense of the Dem- 
ocratic party, there was not a single word 
which tended to impair the dignity of the 
speaker or weaken the force of tlie great 
truths which he uttered. 

At its conclusion nine roof-raising cheers 
were given, — three for the speaker, three for 



204 Sixty Years in Concord. 

the Republicans of Illinois, and three for the 
Republicans of New Hampshire. 

In this speech Mr. Lincoln compared sla- 
very to a snake which had crawled into bed 
with the children, and said the difficulty was 
how to deal with the snake without hurting 
the children. 

At the close of Mr. Lincoln's address, Mr. 
Calvin C. Webster came to the writer of this, 
and said very earnestly, " That man will be 
the next president of the United States." 
He followed Mr. Lincoln to Phoenix hotel and 
made a similar remark to him, to which Mr. 
Lincoln replied that a good many men wanted 
to be president. Mr. Webster afterward 
went to the Chicago convention and helped 
nominate Mr. Lincoln. 

[January 5, 1861.] 

In an Ugly Hole. — Mr. John Clark, of 
Franklin, better known up and down the 
country as " Boston John " the Dam Builder, 
on Friday last week came near making a last 
plunge over one of his own dams. The mill- 
pond immediately above Aiken's great manu- 
facturing establishment, which is frozen over 
but a few da3^s in winter, being covered with 
ice on that day, some men of common weight 
and rotundity had ventured across. "Bos- 
ton," as he is called for shortness, who at the 



Personal Recollections. 205 

ripe age of 71, with form ereet and footsteps 
firm, weighs 240 lbs., noticing the track, put 
himself and his cane into the same path. 
Reaching the centre of the pond in safety, he 
there came to a stand, and, after the manner 
of the elephant treading on a pumpkin in a 
country circus, placing his foot down solid, 
on trial, he settled like a line-of-battle-ship, 
in medias res, for a cooling bath, with the ice 
all around him like a honeycomb. 

Mr. Henry Crane happening to have liis eye 
at this precise moment upon that interesting 
locality, went to the rescue with astonishing- 
velocity. He had not, however, made a dozen 
strides when "Boston" roared out to him,. 
" Bring me a long board" — which was done 
" quicker than Jabe went to the maul," and 
forthwith " Boston " and his cane were stand- 
ing erect again, unharmed save a gentle chill, 
which he says was at once dispelled b}^ warm 
and soothing drinks. 

[January 25, 1862.] 

Ex-Governor Steele was, it seems, one of 
those fossils who wrapped up warm, nursed 
their ancient wrath, and came to Concord to 
join in the passage of resolves (at the state 
convention) full of innuendoes against a 
host of their fellow-citizens who are working- 
like beavers to put down the Rebellion. The 
Republicans of New Hampshire can bear to 
be kicked, but when it is by such men as the 
ex-governor, they can but bring to mind the 
words, — 



206 Sixty Years in Concoi^d. 

'• And wlioii he saw an ass come prancing to his cot, 
' Avast! ' he cried, ' at death I do n't repine, 
IJut't woukl be double death from lieels like thine.' "" 

The Statesman made for years a vigorous 
battle against a class of vexatious lawsuits 
brought to recover damages for fictitious 
injuries sustained on the highwa}^ — a battle 
80 vigorous and effectual that in Januar}^ 
1865, a motion was made to bring the editor 
before the bar of court to answer a charge of 
contempt, — a motion which was dismissed 
by the justice. 

[October 23, 1863.] 

The New Pool of Siloam. — The most 
remarkable of modern curative powers is a 
jury verdict, with damages assessed to the 
amount of a few thousand dollars. This 
paper has uniformly urged the belief that 
most of what are called road cases — suits 
against towns for damages occasioned by 
defects in highways — have their origin in 
nothing but a desire for pelf. We are half 
inclined to retract our opposition in view of 
the brilliant medical results of success in 
suits of this character. If we could publish 
certificates of the nimbleness of tongues once 
speechless, the agility of legs once paralyzed, 
the recover}^ from ailments seen and unseen 
which had been pronounced beyond the reach 
of surgery, all effected by trial by jury, the 
public would be amazed at the curative effect 



o 



f a verdict with damaoes. 



Personal Recollections. 207 

[March 20, 1864.] 

Chocorua Mountain. — We went suffi- 
ciently far from home tlie other da}^ to obtain 
a view of the Sandwich mountains, and saw 
further that notable and favorite peak which 
dwellers in the region round about are wont 
to speak of as " Old Chocorua." It is an 
eminence of peculiar form, the twin brother 
of which cannot be found in the state. The 
people of Carroll county become attached to 
it, as the Swiss to their hills or the Germans 
to the Rhine. Many a man, either on the 
wide-rolling sea or in the army, thinks ever}" 
day of this glorious old gray peak, and if 
brought suddenl}' in sight of it, would be as 
exultant as the Armj^ of Liberation return- 
ing from the last conflict with Napoleon, on 
beholdino' their favorite river: 

*' It is the Rhiue — our mountain vineyards laving-, 
I see its bright Hoods sliiue; 
Sing on the marcli, with every banner waving, 
Sing, brothers, 'tis tlie Hhine.*' 

'' Old Chocorua*' is one of the most con- 
spicuous features in the mountain region of 
New Hampshire. Its ragged summit, its 
isolated position, and moreover a legend con- 
nected with it, cause it to be a celebrated 
peak. 

If we could transfer Chocorua mountain 
to Clnchester, and put Sanborn ton bay where 
lies the wide intervale east of Main street, 
what a glorious prospect there would be ! 



208 Sixty Years in Concord. 

[July 2o, 1864.] 

A Tough Hen. — Two Concord fishermen* 
over in Epsom sought refuge from a heavy 
shower under a friendly roof, leaving the 
paraphernalia of their sport leaning against 
the side of the house. Hearing a terrible 
squawking shortly afterward, they sought 
the cause, and found that a hen, in pursuit 
of worms, had swallowed one containing a 
fatal fisli-hook, and was tugging lustily at the 
line to get away. The woman of the house 
expressed much regret at the occurrence, the 
victim being her best hen and most reliable 
layer. Every effort was made to extract the 
hook, but it clung fast to the dark interior 
of biddy's throat. A proposition to kill her 
was overruled. After full consultation it 
was determined to cut off the line, leave tlie 
hook in the gullet of the victim, and see 
what would come of it. To the surprise of 
all hands, on the next day the hen laid one 
of her largest-sized eggs, and has gone on 
from that day to this, fulfilling all her duties 
in the most exemplary and hen-like manner, 
as though nothing had happened to derange 
her stomacli. 

[May 4, 1866.] 

CAPTUiiE OF A Black Eagle. — Mr. 
Charles Abbott, who lives on the place called 
the " silk farm," near Turkey pond, in this 
city, some days ago set a steel trap on a hum- 

* Isaac A. Hill, with whom I have enjoyed many a good 
hunt, and Benjamin E. Badger. 



Personal Recollections. :2U9 

mock above the surface of the pond to catch 
some of the wild ducks which he had observed 
to frequent that spot. Visiting the trap, he 
found that one had been caught, and some 
evil bird had devoured it. Trying his luck 
again, last Saturday he caught two, and 
while taking them ashore in a boat a black 
eagle came down so near, that, to use Mr. 
Abbott's words, lie* was afraid the audacious 
fellow would get the ducks away from him. 
It was determined to tr}^ the capture of the 
eagle himself, and tlie trap was set for him 
with a suitable bait. That very same da}^ his 
majest}^ put his foot in it. Mr. Abbott rowed 
out to the hummock, expecting a battle witli 
the bird, but to his utter surprise, as soon as 
the boat reached the hummock, the eagle 
walked in with the trap and chain, and seated 
himself to be taken ashore. He Avas unin- 
jured, and is now at Mr." Abbott's house, 
where he bears his captivity without any 
sulky or captious ways, suffering himself to 
be approaclied and handled familiarly. The 
spread of his wings is seven and one half 
feet. Although called the black eagle, Wil- 
son, the ornithologist, gives liim the more 
inelegant title of ''Ring Tailed Eagle." 

[April 16, 1869.] 

Last evening, about eight o'clock, the most 
beautiful auroral display we have ever seen 
was visible over Concord. It was as if some 
celestial mercer had unrolled two or three 
dozen pieces of silk, of the most beautiful tints 



210 Sixty Years in Concord. 

of purple, green, blue, lilac, and wliite, gathered 
the ends into his hands at tlie zenith, and let 
them flow down to the horizon (north, south, 
east, and west). The colors were frequently 
clianged — sometimes quite suddenly, some- 
times disolving gradually, and softly fading 
before the new tints. 

It is impracticable to continue these quota- 
tions, but looking at the files for the period 
under our review, some interesting facts pre- 
sent themselves. 

Among our correspondents, 1859-66, were 
Moses B. Goodwin, the best letter-writer we 
ever had, Col. Henry W. Fuller, Charles H. 
Bartlett, Esq., Capt. William F. Goodwin, 
and Capt. Edward E. Sturtevant. 

The Statesman was the first paper in New 
Hampshire (September 5, 1859) to devote 
regularly a column to paragraphs of state 
news, a practice in whicli it soon had many 
followers. 

On the morning of Friday, August 6, 1859, 
we did what was then thought pretty enter- 
prising, — printed almost two columns about 
an anniversary at Gilmanton academy winch 
occurred the day before. 

During the summer of 1859 we published 
lists of arrivals at the White Mountain hotels. 

Our election returns were always most full 
and most accurate. 



Personal Recollections. liH 

The Statesman advocated the introduction 
of Long Pond water to our main precinct as 
early as May, 1857, when it employed Mr. 
John C. Briggs to make a survey, and deter- 
mine the altitude of Long Pond above the 
sidewalk at the corner of Main and Bridge 
streets. Li September, 1859, it asked, '•^Shall 
we have pleyity of ivater?^^ following this up 
with articles on that subject until July 20, 
1866, and perhaps longer. 

Li 1861 it urged the adoption of steam 
engines for the Concord fire department. 

The Statesman did good service toward 
retaining the state-house in Concord when its 
removal was threatened in June, 1864. 

Tlie paper put up the name of General 
Grant as its candidate for the Presidency on 
December 13, 1867. 

Among the distinguished men who visited 
Concord during or near the period under ex- 
amination here, and not previously mentioned 
as visitors, were Hannibal Hamlin, Schuyler 
Colfax, Henr}^ Wilson (once a pupil at the 
Concord Literary Institution), John A. An- 
drew, William Pitt Fessenden, Daniel E. 
Sickles, John E. Wool, Joseph H. Hawley, 
Benjamin F. Butler, Gen. T. W. Sherman of 
Sherman's Battery, Benjamin R. Curtis, 
Joshua L. Chamberlain, D. W. Voorhees, 



212 Sixty Years in Concord. 

Lord Ainberle}^ of Engiand, and Stephen A. 
Douglas. 

Lady Aiiiberley was also here, and Mrs. 
Douglas, tlie latter deemed to be one of the 
most beautiful women of her time. 

Mr. Douglas's visit was in July, 1860, and 
General Pierce, General Peaslee, and other 
prominent Democrats found it convenient to 
be out of town. Henry P. Rolfe, Esq., did 
the honors of the occasion. Mr. Douglas 
was then out of favor with the Democratic 
party of the South. Mrs. Douglas afterward, 
at Newport, R. L, had something to say about 
tlie behavior of her and her husband's friends 
liere, who trampled down a lawn with eager 
feet, and could be seen peering through lier 
liost's windows to gaze on her attractive 
face. 

The Statesman office had in this region a 
reputation for doing careful jDrinting, which 
liad come along as an inheritance from the 
small beginning of my father in 1834 ; and- in 
1859 sixteen persons were employed, beside 
the proprietors. A pamphlet printed to ac- 
company some Shaker washing-machines to 
the World's Fair in London, in 1862, was so 
much admired by the judges of the fair, that 
the commissioner, Hon. Frederick Smyth, 
could have obtained some favorable notice 



Perso)tal Recollections. 213 

for us if it liad been entered in the lists for 
exhibition. 

Our mechanical resources were sufficient 
for the time, although we were unable to 
meet the wishes of a customer who in 1868 
wanted a Bible printed right off, so he could 
take it home that day on the 3 o'clock train. 
An important accessory to our establishment 
was an excellent steam engine built by Hit- 
tinger & Cook, of Charlestown, Mass., which 
drove the power presses, — an Adams, a Hoe 
cylinder (set up in 1858), and two rattle-te- 
bang Hawkes presses. There was also an 
immense hand press for large posters, which 
was disliked by workmen, and christened by 
some of them " the man-killer." 

Writing of those presses reminds me of a 
locah attempt made about 1851 to invent a 
printing machine, or to improve some exist- 
ing one. The projectors were a printer and 
a railroad clerk who had wrought with tools. 
Securing a place over the Patriot office, they 
set about their work with enthusiasm. I 
happened to witness many a consultation be- 
tween these friends in interest, but never 
saw the object of their endeavors. 

After I joined the Statesman., in the course 
of a consultation the belief was expressed by 
one of the partners that we might be so for- 



214 Sixty Years in Concord. 

tuiiate as to each gain annually, in return for 
our investment and personal services, as much 
as $2,000, an expectation which proved to he 
well founded. There was usually an abun- 
dance of advertising, of which for our issue 
of April 23, 1859, we declined five columns. 

In January, 1863, because of the high price 
of paper, the size of our sheet was reduced, 
and smaller type used ; but in Januar3% 1866, 
tlie full size was restored. 

The Democratic party in New Hampshire 
became an unhappy family as early as 1854. 
The Patriot lost the state printing tliat 3'ear, 
and the State Cajjital Heporter., then two 
years old, with Amos Hadley, one of its ed- 
itors, as a candidate, obtained it. In 1855, 
when the old party had fairly fallen from 
power, there were three Concord papers in 
the opposition, the Statesman^ the Reportery 
and the Independeiit Democrat., which last 
was started in Manchester in May, 1845. 
Soon after its beo-inniuo- it came to Concord* 
and in 1847 absorbed the New Hampshire 
Courier., with which the Grranite Freeman and 
the Concord Grazette had been previously 
united. The G-azette had a brief existence. 
Jts editor was Mr. Charles F. Low, an eccen- 
tric gentleman and extensive traveller, who 
studied theology in Andover, law in Concord, 



Personal Recollections. 215 

was a lieutenant in the Mexican war, in 1861 
was robbed by Bedouins in the valley of the 
Jordan, and at last was drowned in Indian 
river in Florida, Jan. 16, 1874. 

Mr. Hadley was reelected public printer in 
1855 and 1856. In 1857 he and his paper 
Avere united with the Independent Democrat^ 
and in tliat year George G, Fogg, of the lat- 
ter, was chosen successor to Mr. Hadley. Mr. 
Fogg was a Avriter, but not a printer. Under 
these circumstances the public printing was 
not so well done that it could not be done 
better, and the publishers of the Statesman 
had begun to Avonder, early in 1858, wdien 
their turn at the business would come. It 
never would have come with the assent of 
the incumbent. ^Ir. Foo-o- had no inclina- 
tion to part with his office ; he was a great 
believer in himself, and a strong writer, 
fond of assailing both opponents and rivals. 
There were many issues of his paper when 
he devoted more space to attacking the 
Statesman than he did to fighting the com- 
mon enemy. He probably succeeded in 
making a portion of his readers and the 
public believe that the Statesman was not 
altogether sound on the slavery question. 
My father, the most transparently upright 
and honest man whom I ever knew, had 



21 f) Sixty Years in Coyicord. 

neither the art nor the. inclination for mak- 
ing tactful use of his resources to gain any 
personal end, and he had little taste for 
office ; but he was not quite willing to let 
the Statesman stand quietly aside any longer, 
and see its rivals continue to carry away the 
chief recognition and favor of the part}^ and 
beside, he wanted to do the public printing 
in a careful style, as lie had once before done 
it, in 1846. 

Our attempt to oust Mr. Foo'O' was made 
b}^ regular approaches. The editor of the 
Statesman became a candidate before the 
legislature of 1858, with small expectation 
of success that season, because the rule of 
two years in office would be urged forcefully 
in behalf of Mr. Fogg, but with the intent 
to set a stout stake in the contested ground. 
One year later, in June, 1859, Mr. McFar- 
land was elected, receiving 189 votes to 109 
for William Butterfield. 

Prior to this election the Indej)ende)it 
Democrat made its customary effort to ex- 
liibit tlie Statesman as unreliable on the 
slavery question. There were some Repub- 
licans in the legislature whose chief reading- 
was the Independent Democrat, represented 
as well by David Morrill of Canterbury as 
by anybody, who I have no doubt had been 



Personal Recollections. -IT 

compelled to believe the proprietors of the 
Statesman capable of owning negro slaves. 
This old gun of the Independent Democ7'at 
was spiked by the Statesnuot declaring itself 
in favor of William H. Seward as candidate 
for the Republican presidential nomination 
in 1860. The editor did this with good con- 
science, decisively, early in June, 1859. 

Mr. Seward was just then the hete noir of 
all pro-slavery men. In a speech made at 
Rochester, N. Y., the previous year, he had 
used these words in regard to the slavery 
question : " It is an irrepressible conflict 
between opposing and enduring forces, and 
it means that the United States must and 
will, sooner or later, become eitlier entirel}^ 
•a slave-holding nation, or entirely a free 
labor nation." Taking this downright stand 
in favor of Mr. Seward, "irrepressible con- 
flict" and all, probably removed all doubt 
about our political standing, and we had the 
public printing for the years 1859, 1860, 
1861, 1862, 1865, and 1866. 

Busy places as most newspaper offices are, 
there are callers who expect to meet the edi- 
tor. Before our time Isaac Hill received 
such around the unpretending table where 
he prepared the invective for the Pati-iot. 
Here Mr. William Low, with a more fiery 



218 Sixty Years in Concord. 

and intense spirit even than that which ani- 
mated Mr. Hill, sat by the hour to urge the 
pen of his impetuous friend. 

Our editorial work was done with an 
equipment as plain as Mr. Hill's. The edi- 
tor of the StatesmaH never liad a desk which 
would have sold at auction for as much as 
two dollars. Even this was placed where 
no quiet thought or counsel could be had, 
and no library was accessible. But there 
were often agreeable callers. Among those 
from out of town, none were more welcome 
than George W. Nesmith of Franklin, Will- 
iam H. Y. Hackett of Portsmouth, John H. 
Thompson of Holderness, David Gillis of 
Manchester, John M. Parker of Goffstown, 
Joel Eastman and John McMillan of Con- 
way, Aurin M. Chase of Whitefield, Richard 
H. Messer and Luther McCutcheon of New 
London, William M. Weed of Sandwich, 
Joseph Gilman and Nathaniel Hubbard of 
Tamworth, Jacob Benton, Ossian Ray, and 
Henry O. Kent of Lancaster, Cyrus Taylor 
of Bristol, John S. Walker of Claremont? 
Alvin Beard of Nasliua, Georo-e Wadleig-h 
of Dover, George S. Towle of Lebanon, and 
John L. Rix of Haverhill, — the last two as 
fiery and impetuous as was old William Low 
himself. Tliese were all, or nearly all, men 



Persoiud Recollections. 219 

who had come along the old Whig paths 
into the Republican party, and were deemed 
as reliable as the sun in its revolution. 
The}^ had alwa3^s news or some good story 
to tell, to lighten the editorial pen. 

There are doubtless interesting incidents 
disclosing themselves to all printers. I will 
relate one which came to our experience in 
the course of a lawsuit at Plymouth, in the 
winter of 1861-62. A firm doing business 
in Concord had sued another in Grafton 
county, and laid an attachment on property 
to secure debt. Just before this attachment 
was placed, other attachments had been laid 
on the same property to secure the holders 
of certain notes made by the debtors, bearing 
date May 18, 1858. The Concord creditors 
believed these notes to be fraudulent, and an 
investigation followed. The debtors swore 
that the notes were made on the day of 
their date. Now these notes were written 
on forms which bore the imprint of Rufus 
Merrill, a stationer in Concord. Mr. Merrill 
was able to testify that the forms were 
printed for him at our office. It proved 
that the ornamental design at the left end 
of the notes, an engraving of the figure of 
America on tlie dome of the capitol of the 
United States, was not owned by us until 



220 Sixty Years in Concord. 

March 16, 1859. So we were able to testify 
that the notes were not printed until nearly 
a year after they were dated, and the scheme 
of the debtors was utterly frustrated. 

In 1861, as a consequence of war, gold 
and silver money went very suddenly out 
of circulation. The disappearance of small 
silver coins was a serious hindrance to busi- 
ness. Postage-stamps- of different denomi- 
nations were used as currency, but they 
became soiled and sticky. Before the gov- 
ernment issued its fractional paper currency, 
local attempts were made to supply a public 
need. We printed checks for fractions of a 
dollar for the Bank of Newbury, Vermont ; 
the Ocean Bank, Newburj^port, Mass. ; the 
Union Bank, Concord; the Carroll County 
Bank, Sandwich ; the Warner Bank, Warner ; 
and for others. Local traders of good repute 
also issued fractional checks. Specimens of 
this war-time currency are now scarce, and 
possess considerable liistoric interest. 

The war as it went along gave cause for 
another kind of printed matter. There is 
among my specimens a card which is a 
curiosity to young people, and is therefore 
copied below. It was probably printed in 
1864, when " substitute brokers " were a 
rather numerous and active people. 



Personal Recollections. 221 

Xew Hampshire Union Recruiting Company. 

No. o, Hutcliins Street, leading from Main street 
to the Depot, Concord, N. H. 

Highest Prices paid for Substitutes nnd Vol- 
unteers. 

Dkaftei) Men or Town Agp:nts will be furnished 
at the Shortest Notice. 

J. S. Appleton: Wm. H. Conner; G. W. Dodge; 
J. O. Trask ; Ed. Jndkins ; J. C. Nichols; 
D. S. Carr. 

Considerable sums of money were gained 
l)y substitute brokers and some of the per- 
sons with whom they dealt. A recruiting 
officer who was stationed here for a season 
told me, years afterward, that he made as 
much as f 12,000 in a few weeks' service. 
This was done by enlisting men for towns 
which were paying large bounties for ver}' 
indifferent recruits. 

Among those who did some service for the 
Statesman., at or not very far from the time 
which we are recalling to view, and who 
gained distinction in other walks of life, 
there were, as Avriters, Joseph C. Abbott, 
afterward adjutant-general of New Hamp- 
shire, a general of the United States Volun- 
teers, and senator from North Carolina ; and 
John T. Perry, afterward of tlie Cincinnati 
Gazette ; — as printers, Jacob H. Gallinger and 



O.70 



Sixty Years in Concord. 



Martin A. Haynes, comrades at the case and 
associate members of congress ; Col. Pliin P. 
Bixby of the Sixth and Maj. Edward E. 
Sturtevant of the Fiftli New Hampsliire reg- 
iments. 

I was away from the Statesman from De- 
cember, 1862, until January, 1866, serving 
in the general staff of the arm}^ of the 
United States. 



XII. 



Wlien it became known in the autumn of 
1860 that Abraham Lincoln had been elected 
president, what has been called the "great 
unpleasantness" began. In December, South 
Carolina declared herself out of the Union, 
and within two months six other states had 
followed her. President Buchanan (who, 
when he visited Concord in 1846, as a mem- 
ber of Mr. Polk's cabinet, forgot his linen 
duster and left that gaiment to grace the 
rotund figure of the landlord of the Ameri- 
can House) proved too feeble for the emer- 
gency, as all the world knows. 

Nobody knew tlien, at least nobody in 
Concord knew, how great and wise a man 
Abraham Lincoln was. George G. Fogg 
had visited Mr. Lincoln at Springfield, 111., 
after the nomination for the presidency, and 
therefore his opinion of the president-elect 
was occasionally sought. Mr. Horace L. 
Hazelton, of Boston, inquired of Mr. Fogg, 
before the inauguration, if Mr. Lincoln was 
another Andrew Jackson, and Mr. Fogg- 
replied, "I wish he were a Jackson," — an 



224 Sixty Years in Concord. 

answer which did not entirely reassure Mr. 
Hazelton, or tliose to wliom Mr. Hazelton 
repeated it. 

There was a good deal of indifference to 
the unusual proceedings at the South. Se- 
cession had been threatened so lone, that 
when states proclaimed their withdrawal 
from the Union there was neither surprise 
nor excitement nor dismay. The emergenc}' 
was estimated differently by different indi- 
viduals. I remember hearing a Concord 
citizen, Henry P. Rolfe, Esq., say in March, 
1861, that it looked as if the constitution of 
the Confederate States, adopted the preced- 
ing month by a convention held at Mont- 
gomery, Ala., would be ratified ultimately 
l)y everj/ state. North as well as South. This 
would have been equivalent to a secession of 
all the states from the existing Union, and 
the formation of a new confederation with 
slavery permitted in each state. 

In the early part of February, 1861, a 
Peace Congress of representatives of the 
states assembled in Washino^ton on the invi- 

o 

tation of the state of Virginia, the delegates 
from New Hampshire being Asa Fowler of 
Concord, Levi Chamberlain of Keene, and 
Amos Tuck of Exeter. The deliberations of 
this assembly, February 4-27, were interest- 



Personal Recollections. 225 

iiig but ineffectual; — still, I remember hear- 
ing Judge Fowler say, on his return to Con- 
cord, that he was satisfied there would be no 
war. 

The New York Evening Post had said, in 
the preceding November, that a distin- 
guished gentleman at the South, being 
addressed to ascertain what in his opinion 
would be the end of this secession humbug, 
replied, — " It will end as all such things at 
the South have ended ; but you must let us 
down easy. Patience and good nature on 
the part of the Northern states are all that is 
required to make this conclusion speedj^ and 
sure." 

The New Hampshire Statesmaii said, — "In 
opposition to the above, we hear that ex- 
President Pierce, whose sources of informa- 
tion are said to be of the most fortunate 
character, differs in opinion from this dis- 
tinguished Southern gentleman, and regards 
a dissolution of the Union as inevitable." 

Stephen A. Douglas said privately, when 
he was in Concord in Jul}^ 1860, tliat Lin- 
coln would be elected and war would follow. 

Who of our people then old enough to 
appreciate the situation will ever forget the 
months of weary waiting, from November, 
1860, to March, 1861, — traitors in the cabi- 



226 Sixty Years in Concord. 

net, in the army, and in the navy, stealing 
and plundering everywhere, and not one 
spark of manly courage or apparent force at 
Washington, except when, on January 29, 
John A. Dix, a loyal man, who had by some 
strange chance become secretary of the 
treasury, telegraphed to a special agent of 
that department at New Orleans, who was 
trying to save a revenue cutter, the captain 
of which had gone over to the enemy, — ""If 
any one attempts to haul down the American 
flag, shoot him on the spot." 

President Lincoln was inaugurated in 
Marcli. There was another month of inac- 
tion, not unlike the later months of Bu- 
chanan's administration, when the public 
feeling was expressed by the Neiv York 
Times in a very remarkable newspaper arti- 
cle entitled "Wanted — A Policy." That 
article is too long for reproduction here, but 
I quote its closing paragraph: 

We trust this period of indecision, of 
inaction, of fatal indifference, will have a 
speedy end. Unless it does, we may bid 
farewell to all hope of saving the Union 
from destruction and the countr}^ from an- 
archy. A mariner might as well face the 
tempest without compass or helm, as an 
administration put to sea amid such storms 
as now darken our skies, without a clear and 



Personal Recollections. '2J2,1 

definite plan of public conduct. The coun- 
try looks eagerly to President Lincoln for 
the dispersion of the dark mystery that 
hangs over our public affairs. The people 
want something to be decided on, some 
standard raised, some policy put forward, 
which sliall serve as a rallying-point for the 
abundant but discouraged loyalty of the 
American heart. In a great crisis like this, 
there is no policy so fatal as that of having 
no policy at all. 

Then came the bombardment of Fort Sum- 
ter in Charleston harbor, and the surrender 
of that fortress to the rebels on the morning 
of Sunday, April 14. News of this surrender 
reached Concord Sunday noon, and was com- 
municated to a hundred or more persons 
waiting around the telegraph office. People 
were looking anxiously for a hero just then, 
and on what seemed rather slender evidence 
adopted Major Robert Anderson, the punc- 
tilious commander of the surrendered fort. 
After the Avar was over, there was found 
among the rebel papers a letter from Ander- 
son, written while he was in command at 
Sumter, in Avhich he said, '' I tell you frankly, 
my heart is not in this war." 

On Monday moi-ning, April 15, came the 
proclamation of President Lincoln calling 
for seventy-five thousand volunteers, and 



228 Sixty Years in Concord, 

the strange public stupor was gone. The 
administration had a policy. A great mass 
meeting assembled in our city hall Friday 
evening, April 19, at which patriotic ad- 
dresses were made by Thomas P. Treadwell, 
Henry P. Kolfe, William L. Foster, Anson S. 
Marshall, Edward H. Rollins, Nathaniel S. 
Berry, A. B. Thompson, Josiah Stevens, 
Joseph B. Walker, Henry E. Parker, Cyrus 
W. Flanders, E. E. Cummings, S. M. Vail, 
and R. R. Meredith, the latter then a stu- 
dent at the Methodist Institute, now a dis- 
tinguished clergyman of Brooklyn, N. Y. 
There was no mistaking tlie fervid patri- 
otism of the audience. 

It became known the next day that Gen- 
eral Pierce wanted to be heard, so a crowd 
assembled in the evening at the Eagle hotel, . 
and the ex-president spoke from a balcony : 

Fellow-Citizens and neighbors : If I had 
been apprised of your meeting last night, 
seasonably, I should have been present at it, 
but the notice did not reach me until this 
morning. I wish to say in advance that 
since my arrival here the resolution has been 
read to me, and it has my cordial approval. 
You call for me, my friends, as lovers of our 
country and of the blessed Union which our 
fathers transmitted to us, on an occasion 
more grave, more momentous, fraught with 



Personal Recollectio7is. 229 

more painful eiiiotions, than any under which 
I liave ever addressed you ; but I rejoice 
that that flag floats there (pointing to the 
flag). 

Love for the flag of our country is a senti- 
ment common to us all; at least to my 
heart it is no new emotion. My father fol- 
lowed it from the battle of Bunker Hill till 
the enemy evacuated New York in 1783. 
My brothers were with the gallant men who 
upheld it in the War of 1812. Can I, can 
you, fail to remember how proudly it floated 
at a more recent date from Palo Alto to 
Buena Vista on one line of operation, and 
from the castle of San Juan d'Ulloa to the 
city of Mexico on another ? Never! Can we 
forget that the gallant men of the North and 
of the South moved together like a band of 
brothers, and mingled their blood on many 
a field in the common cause? Can I, if I 
would, feel other tlian the profoundest sad- 
ness when I see that tliose who have so 
often stood shoulder to shoulder in the face 
of foreign foes are now in imminent peril of 
standing face to face as the foes of each 
other? — but they should have thought of 
this as well as we : at all events there is 
no time now to consult our feelings. The 
question has resolved itself into one of 
patriotism and stern duty. We cannot fail 
to see what the nature of this contest is to 
be, and to some limited extent tlie fearful- 
ness of its progress and consequences. We 
must not, liowever, turn our faces from 
them, because the true way to meet danger 



230 Sixty Yecvrs in Concord, 

is to see it clearly and encounter it on the 
advance. I, for one, will never cease to 
hope, so long as the fratricidal strife is not 
more fully developed than at present, that 
some event, some power, may yet intervene 
to save us from the most dire calamity that 
ever impended over a nation. The opinions 
of many of the vast crowd I see before me, 
with regard to the causes which have pro- 
duced the present condition of public affairs, 
are known to me, and mine are well known 
to you. I do not believe aggression by 
arms is a suitable or possible remedy for 
existing evils. Still, neither of these mat- 
ters ought to be considered now : they may 
well be waived, nay, must be, until we have 
seen each other through present trials and 
future dangers. 

Should the hope which I have expressed 
not be realized, which may a beneficent 
Providence forbid, and a war of aggression 
be waged against the national capital and 
tlie North, then there is no way for us, as 
citizens of one of the old thirteen states, but 
to stand together, and upliold the flag to the 
last, with all the rights which pertain to it, 
and with the fidelity and endurance of brave 
men. I would advise you to stand togetlier 
with one mind and heart. Be calm, faithful, 
and determined, but give no countenance to 
passion and violence, which are usually un- 
just, and often in periods like this the har- 
bingers of domestic strife. Be just to youi^ 
selves, just to others, true to your country ; 
and may God, who so signally blessed our 



Personal Recollections. 231 

fathers, graciously interpose in this hour of 
clouds and darkness to save both extremi- 
ties of the country, and to cause tlie old flag 
to be uplield by all hands and. all hearts. 
Born in the state of New Hampsliire, I 
intend that here sliall repose my bones. I 
would not live in a state the right and honor 
of which I was not prepared to defend at all 
hazards and to the last extremity. 

This address, spoken as it was with earnest- 
ness of manner, sounded well, and was re- 
ceived with cheers, but there is not much 
battle smoke in it. Hon. Ira Perley, who 
stalked about in the dimly-lighted street, 
with a half-fierce and wholly patriotic man- 
ner, characterized it instantly as '' late, re- 
luctant, and unimportant." 

In the preceding year ex-President Pierce 
had written a letter to Jefferson Davis, which 
was brought to light in the looting of the 
Davis plantation in Mississippi in 1863, in 
which he said, — 

Without discussing the question of right 
— of abstract power to secede — I have never 
believed that actual disruption of the Union 
can occur without blood ; and if through the 
madness of Northern abolitionists that dire 
calamity must come, the fighting will not be 
along Mason and Dixon's line merely. It 
will be within our own borders and in our 



232 Sixty Years in Concord. 

own streets, between the two^ classes of citi- 
zens to whom I have referred. Those who 
defy hiw and st30ut constitutional obligations, 
will, if we ever reach the arbitrament of arms, 
find occupation enough at home. 

The ''late, reluctant, and unimportant" 
speech might never have been made had the 
general foreseen the discovery of his remark- 
able letter.* 

It was an inspiring and reassuring sight 
when on Saturday morning. May 25, the 
First regiment came over from Camp Union 
and marched down Main street to the rail- 
way station, with its ranks reaching clear 
across the avenue, followed by a baggage- 
train and outfit which caused the New 
Yorkers to say it was tlie best equipped regi- 
ment which had gone to the war. I can see 
exactly how that whole regiment looked, and 
the figure and expression of Col. Mason W. 
Tappan as he rode past the Phoenix hotel at 
the head of the column, a little anxious, not 
exactly glad to go, but ready to do a soldier's 
duty. 

There were many such sights to follow, 
for the Third, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, Elev- 

*Hon. Henry S. Foote. formerly a senator from Missis- 
sippi, in his History of the RebeUion'says,—" Ex- President 
Pierce, and several others whose letters to Mr. Davis have 
lately seen the li^ht, had plied this confiding' persnnage 
with secret promises of support, upon which he built in part 
his hopes of one day wielding an imperial sceptre." 



Perso7ial Recollections. 233 

enth, Twelfth, Tliirteeiith, Fourteenth, Fif- 
teenth, and Sixteenth regiments- were all 
mustered at Concord, and one after another 
tramped down our broad avenue with the 
sturdy tread that carried them into every 
great battle of the war. Concord herself 
furnislied more than men enough to make a 
regiment, — in fact more than thirteen hun- 
dred men. They were on the Peninsula, at 
Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, 
Gettysburg, Vicksburg, Port Hudson, the 
Wilderness, Nashville, the siege of Rich- 
mond, and Appomattox; with Hooker, and 
Meade, and Thomas, and Sheridan, and Sher- 
man, and Grant, and their story of patience 
and sacrifice will never be adequately told. 
Perhaps the Second and Fiftli regiments 
became as famous as any. The following- 
paragraph was floating about as long ago as 
September, 1862 : 

Said an officer in the Army of the Poto- 
mac, — "" When there is a rough job on liand 
McClellan calls on Hooker's Division. 'Fight- 
ing Joe ' looks the matter over, and if there 
be a particularly hard corner, he gives that to 
Grover's brigade. General Grover wants a 
regiment he can rely on, and he selects the 
Second New Hampshire. Then if there is 
one place more difficult than all tlie rest, 
Colonel Marston brings out Company B of 
Concord." 



234 Sixty Years in Concord^ 

The Fifth led the roll of all infantry regi- 
ments in the total number of its casualties, 
two hundred and ninety-five having been 
killed or mortally Avounded in its ranks. 
Gen. Francis A. Walker says of the Fifth at 
Antietam, — 

Under cover of a ridge, at some little dis- 
tance from the left, the enemy are moving 
down into our rear. The movement is first 
discovered by Cross of the Fifth New Hamp- 
shire. He waits for no orders, but instantly 
faces to the left and moves to the rear, dash- 
ing into a race with the enemy for the pos- 
session of a ridge that commands the field. 
The two lines actually were parallel to and 
not far from each other. Cross is ahead, 
seizes the crest, and pours a volley from his 
whole front upon the discomfited enemy, who 
fell back as rapidly as they had advanced, 
leaving the colors of the Fourth North Caro- 
lina in tlie hands of the brave boys from New 
Hampshire. 

And at Gettysburg, — 

The scene of the contest is the wheat-field, 
so famous in the story of Gettysburg. This, 
and the woods on the south and west, are 
now full of the exulting enemy. Through 
this space charges the fiery Cross, of the 
Fifth New Hampshire, witli liis well approved 
brigade. It is his last battle. He, indeed, 
has said it, as he exchanged greetings with 
Hancock on the way ; but he moves to his 



Personal Recollections. 235 

death with all the splendid enthusiasm he 
displayed at Fair Oaks, Antietam, and Fred- 
ericksburg. 

In the third week of July, 1861, I hap- 
pened to go to Washington for the first time, 
and determined to satisfy at once my curi- 
osity to see Gen. Winfield Scott, who held 
the highest rank in our arm}^ So I waited 
one afternoon around his headquarters on 
Seventeenth street until he came forth. His 
was, as every one knows, a strong, majestic 
figure, and he spoke a kindly word to all who 
addressed him ; but I came away with a heavy 
heart, for I could not believe that a man so 
aged, so clumsy and infirm, enjoying military 
fame with vanity so evident, could command 
successfully a great army in the field. My 
impressions were utterly unlike those obtained 
three years later from the calm, thouglitful 
face of General Grant, whom I saw on March 
8, 1864, not far from the same spot, in the 
hidl of Willard's hotel, about to take com- 
mand of all the armies of the North, and in 
one year and one month end the war : 

" He slew ourdraj^on, nor, so seemed it, knew 
He had done more than any simplest man might 
do." 

There had been in the hall of the hotel an 
hour or two earlier an amusing occurrence, 



236 Sixty Years in Concord. 

which is described by Hon. L. E. Chittenden 
in his " Recollections of President Lincoln 
and His Administration '' as follows : 

It was in the early days of spring, and I 
was living at Willard's. The outlook was 
discouraging, and occurrences in the treasury 
had been very depressing to friends of the 
Union. I had risen early, had left my room 
before dawn, and, seated by a window wliich 
overlooked the avenue, in the main office, I 
began to read the morning paper. The pas- 
sengers from the Western trains had not yet 
arrived. The gas-lights were turned down, 
and tliat potentate, the hotel clerk, who had 
not yet pat on his daily air of omnipotence, 
was peacefull}^ sleeping in his cusliioned arm- 
chair. Two omnibuses were driven to the 
entrance on Fourteenth street, witli the rail- 
road passengers from the West. The crowd 
made the usual rush for the register; the 
clerk condescended to open his eyes, and as- 
sign them rooms on tlie upper floor (tliere 
was no elevator), as thouo^h he felt an acute 
pleasure in compelling them to make tlie as- 
cent, and for a few moments there was bustle 
and confusion. It was soon over ; the clerk 
resumed his arm-chair, closed liis eyes, and 
liis weary soul appeared to be at rest. 

There were two passengers who did not 
appear to be in such frantic haste. One 
was a sunburned man of middle age, who 
wore an aruiy hat and a linen duster, below 
which, where a small section of his trousers 



Personal Recollectiojis. 237 

were visible, T caught a glimpse of the nar- 
row stripe of the army uniform. He held 
the younger traveller, a lad of ten years, by 
the hand, and carried a small leatlier bag. 

As they modestly approached the counter, 
the temporary lord of that part of creation, 
without deigning, to rise from his chair, gave 
the register a practised Avhirl, so that the 
open page was presented to the elder trav- 
eller, observing, as he did so, '^ I suppose you 
will want a room together." 

He named a room with a high number, 
gave the usual call, ''Front!" while the 
guest proceeded to write his name without 
making any observation. The clerk removed 
the pen from behind his ear; gave another 
whirl to the register, and was about to enter 
the number of the room, when — he was sud- 
denly transfixed as with a bolt of lightning ! 
His imperial majesty became a servile menial, 
thoroughly awake, and ready to grovel be- 
fore the stranger. He begged a thousand 
pardons ; the traveller's arrival had been ex- 
pected—parlor A, on the shady side of the 
house, the very best apartment in the hotel, 
had been prepared for his reception — it Avas 
on the first floor, oidy one flight of stairs ! 
Might he be allowed to relieve him of his 
travelling convenience? and the lordly crea- 
ture actually disappeared up the stairway, 
like Judas, carrying the bag. 

My curiosity was excited to ascertain who it 
was that had wrought such a sudden trans- 
formation. I walked to the counter, and 



238 Sixty Years in Concord. 

there read the last entry on the register. 
It was : " U. S. Grant and son, Galena, 111." 

An unfortunate battle was fought during 
the week of my stay in Washington, — the 
Bull Run battle of July 21, 1861. The after- 
noon of that day, in company with Mr. John 
C. Wilson, formerly of Concord, I was loiter- 
ing near the southern boundary of the White- 
House grounds, and we could hear distinctly 
the far-away boom of the cannon. No doubt 
as to the result of the battle disturbed us, 
until some hours later a tide of fugitives 
came pouring over Long Bridge, and there 
passed by, in a Concord wagon, our friends 
Congressman Rollins and George Marston 
(the latter afterward a paymaster in the 
army), who had, with other sanguine gentle- 
men, driven into Virginia to witness the dis- 
comfiture of the rebels ! 

The defeated army swarmed in confusion 
into the streets of Washington, and the city 
for a few hours seemed to be at the mercy of 
its enemies. Among a disorganized group of 
soldiers I saw one with blood dried in his 
hair. Inquiring if he was hurt, he replied 
that he had got a rap on the head, and taking 
off his cap and following with his finger a 
wound ploughed in his scalp, " Why," said 
he, " here is the d d thing now ! " and so 



Personal Recolleetioyis. 239 

saying he detached a small bullet from the 
lodgment it had found after glancing around 
his skull. 

Chaplain Parker, of our Second regiment, 
whom I saw, was shocked by the battle, and 
very regretful about the result ; feared France 
and England would recognize the Southern 
Confederacy. I asked him about tlie fate of 
a mutual young acquaintance, and my appre- 
hensions as to tliat friend's safety were 
calmed by an assurance that he had run to- 
ward Washington at the first sound of the 
cannon, as fast as his legs could carry him. 

There were many people in Wasliington 
who did not conceal their sympathy with the 
Rebellion. The city itself was merely a 
Southern toAvn, like Alexandria, rambling, 
unpaved, hot, and untidy, interesting to a 
visitor only because of its beautiful situation, 
the public buildings, and the public business. 

There was in Concord, from June, 1856, 
until August, 1861, a weekly newspaper 
called the Democratic Standard^ which was 
printed, published, and purported to be edited 
by the Palmers, a father and four sons. Hon. 
Edmund Burke, of Newport, a newspaper 
man as early as 1833, a j)rominent Democrat 
as far back as 1838-'44, when he represented 
New Hampshire in congress, and in 1845-'49 



240 Sixty Years in Concord. 

when he was commissioner of patents under 
the Polk administration, was supposed to do 
the ablest of the writing for the Standard.^ 
whicli had outright south-side views.* Mr. 
Burke, whose connection with the paper was 
stoutly affirmed, and denied as stoutly, was 
at that time unfriendl}^ to ex-President Pierce. 
The Standard printing-office Avas a place 

*As a specimen, I quote here the closing paragraplis of an 
editorial from tlie Standard of Aug. 3, 1861: 

The developments of the late disastrous battle and humil- 
iating defeat have dem nsirated the fact to the American 
people that Abraham Lincoln is unequal to the gi-ea and 
responsible position to which ne has been elevated. They 
show that he has not the capaci y to jadge for himself and 
to mark out his duij' in this great crisis, nor the firmness to 
execute his plans if he has any.. It now stands c nfessed 
thar he is influenced and controlled by a set of miseiable, 
unprincipled, and cowardly political demagogues who sur- 
round him, and who impudentlj' , through liim. dictate the 
policy of the government, assuming ev< n to <lirect the 
movements of armies. What safety has the country with 
sue 1 a man at the head? None whatever. 

This poor, weak, and incompetent president has been 
driven, by the irresponsible and reckless partisans who sur- 
round him, into the adoption of measures which are in 
violation of the letter and spirit of the constitution, tending 
directly to the subversion of jmblic liberty and the desi ruc- 
tion of our constitutional T-epublic. To this malign influence 
we may justly ascribe the laising and organizing of armies, 
the increase of the navy, the suspension of the habeas cor- 
pus, the deposition of the governments of sovereign s ates, 
the usurpation of t.ie municipal governments of cities, and 
the suppression of the press— acts which in En^iland, at this 
day, would have brought the monarch to the block. All 
these violati n<of th*- constitution have been committed 
by Abraham Lincoln, instigated, we have no doul)t, by the 
shamelc'^s and unprincipled Black Republican demagogues 
bj^ whom he is surround. -d. And finally, the cup of infamy 
is filled to the brim by the ordering of tlie army into Virginia 
against the advice of the greatest of our military com- 
manders. 

If Abraham Lincoln has any love of country left, let him 
abdicate his power into the hands of an efficient Hemocratic 
cabinet. His own party has not sufficien'^ talent to conduct 
the government sticc'^ssfiilly through this great ;ind i)eril- 
ous crisis. They have shown their incompetency hereto- 
fore in times of peace. What can the country expect of 
them in a time of war? Nothing but imbecility, blunders, 
defeats, and disgrace. 



Personal Recollections. 241 

of some mystery, to the inner precincts of 
which none but its printers was admitted. Its 
public room was lined with patent medicines, 
taken in payment for advertising, and exposed 
for sale. It claimed to have a large sub- 
scription list, in the South and elsewhere, but 
the heap of paper wet for the weekly printing- 
was guarded vv^ith jealous care from the eye 
of any one who could size it up at a glance. 
The Patriot never did the Standard so much 
honor as to mention its name until about the 
later days of the latter sheet. 

After the war broke out, tlie Standard was, 
of course, out of favor with Union men, and 
regarded locally as an active scold, to be 
tolerated because it might not" be removed 
except in some lawful way ; but the men who 
had been to the front of the army, and re- 
turned, took a different view of the situation. 
The First regiment, three-montlis men, came 
home in August, 1861, and was greeted by 
the Standard, in its issue of Aug. 8 (dated 
Aug. 10), in a way which gave offence. That 
issue cannot now be found, but in it the 
Union army was referred to as " Old Abe's 
Mob." Copies fell into the hands of returned 
soldiers, and early in the afternoon of Aug. 8, 
squads of uniformed men talking very earn- 
estly were on Main street. One such group 



242 Sixty Years in Concord. 

near tlie Standard office — where the building 
now called Woodward's stands — were aroused 
bv some unwise personal movements of the 
Palmers, who hopped about like tomtits on 
a pump-handle, and brandished weapons at 
their windows. The city marshal, and some 
citizens of both political parties, endeavored 
to restrain the soldiers ; but there was a 
whoop in the street, a rush up the stairs, and 
a thundering at the barricaded door. Bang! — 
bang ! — bang ! went a pistol in the hand of 
John B. Palmer, perhaps three shots in all, 
and the defensive force retreated to a dark 
and rather inaccessible refuge in the attic. 
Destruction was instantly begun. Out of the 
windows went type and materials to a heap 
of wretched chaos in the street. Some prop- 
erty was burned. Toward evening the 
Palmers were rescued by a small party of 
men, conspicuous among whom was John 
Foss, the large-hearted Republican warden 
of the state prison, to whose stone castle the 
fugitives were taken for protection ; and the 
Standard ceased to exist. An editorial manu- 
script picked up by a soldier, and shown to 
me, was in the unmistakable handwriting 
of Edmund Burke. 

No one suffered much bodily harm from 
this riot, wliich has obtained erroneous men- 



Personal Recollections, 243 

tion in history.* Tlie defensive force escaped 
with a few bruises. 

Among the foremost of those who stormed 
the staircase was Charles Clark, a Concord 
boy, fifteen years old, an attendant on an 
officer of the First regiment, who, as he 
looked through a shattered panel of the door, 
received through his low-crowned hat one of 
the pistol shots fired by John Palmer. Two 
soldiers were hurt a little by the remainder of 
Palmer's lead. Clark was not much disturbed 
by his share of the shooting ; laughing gaily, 
he pushed in through the demolished "door. 
He was fond of danger;— in October of the 
previous year he had climbed the spire of the 
Unitarian church,! and stood upright on the 
acorn at its top, one hundred and sixty-three 
feet above the ground. This last perform- 
ance was in the line of that of the sailor- 
blacksmith, William S. Davis, who, one mid- 
night during the Kansas-Nebraska agitation, 
climbed the Democratic flag staff in front of 

Nn'JrHfwTh^'''^^''''''^^ °^ intolerance- and outrage at the 
North but they were comparatively few. One of the most 
notable occurred in Concord, N. H.,in August. 1863(1 vvhen 
f.h^;^'')?''^^'''^^*'^*? ^^^ *«"^ i° itsdlsloyalty wis pun 
Lm4d /hp\ffin^' "^T}^ ^^ ^e^'>' recruited soldiers, who 
^hl^,^^®^?.^^ ^"^ ^^^^^' t^« type into the street. The 
sheriff's reading of the riot act consisted in climb ns a 
lamp-post, extending his righ, arm, and saving pSas?#ely 
ihn Tl^-'V ^"y- 'i^^'^' ^ ^"^^^« ^'O" had better go home.- 
^888 r Ssf '^ ^'^ "^ *^^ Tf'ar o/ Secession. Ticknor & Co.. 

tDestroyed by fire in 1888. 



244 Sixty Years in Concord. 

the state-Louse, and hung at the ends of a 
cross pole, one hundred and fifty feet in the 
air, the life-size effigies of two public men 
who were the subjects of contemporary criti- 
cism. 

The city was sued by John B. Palmer, 
and after several indecisive trials by jury, 
two thousand dollars was paid to him and 
the proceedings quashed. 



XIII. 

Toward the end of the year 1862 I was ap- 
pointed a paymaster in the arm3^ My com- 
mission, which bears for its signature the 
name of Abraham Lincohi, shows the date of 
appointment to have been November 26. 
There were seventy persons appointed to like 
positions on the same day, among them Sim- 
eon D. Farns worth of Manchester, Albert H. 
Hoyt of Portsmouth, and C. W. Woodman of 
Dover. Repairing to Washington for assign- 
ment to duty, we were detained in idleness 
while a quibble was adjusted between the 
treasury and the war department. The con- 
troversy was, whether, being officers of the 
United States, the law required revenue 
stamps to be affixed to our bonds of surety. 
The treasury department said no, the war de- 
partment said yes, and finally, about the last 
of January, 1863, Secretary Stanton had his 
way ; so stamps enough were applied to m}^ 
bond to send it past all scrutiny. I put on 
more than were deemed necessary by the most 
scrupulous solicitors, the extra ones being 
placed as a reinforcement to the picket line. 



246 Sixty Years in Concord. 

The bond itself was not a formidable affair- 
twenty thousand dollars — for the next day 
after it was passed at the war office two hun- 
dred thousand dollars was entrusted to my 
care wherewith to begin service. 

The duties of a paymaster were not so 
simple as beginners had supposed. Soldiers 
were mustered for pay at the end of each al- 
ternate month, and muster rolls of the regi- 
ments to which a paymaster was assigned were 
transmitted to him, through the paymaster- 
general, six times a year. The paj^naster 
extended on the rolls the sum due to each 
man according to data carried on the roll it- 
self. Varying rates of pay, because of differ- 
ences in rank, or service in artillery, cavalry, 
or infantry ; allowances for rations, for ser- 
vants, for reenlistments, and for bounties ; 
stoppages for loss of arms, for over-drafts of 
clothing, for sutlers' bills, and fines by courts- 
martial, made the duty more difficult, and — 
the paymaster being liable for errors — more 
hazardous than most of us had conceived. 
As for myself, I would have retreated, as did 
one of our New Hampshire appointees, had I 
not been ashamed to admit that I dreaded to 
go on. After the rolls were carefully pre- 
pared, payment was made in the field as regu- 
larly as funds could be provided. One clerk 



Personal Recollectioris. 247 

was allowed ; two if the work was very heavy. 
The pa}^ and allowances of a paymaster were 
those of a major of cavalry, and if I remem- 
ber aright, somewhat more than •f)2,.500 a 
year. 

My first detail was to the Second and 
Fourth Wisconsin batteries, at Suffolk, Va., 
the 148th New York regiment at Norfolk, 
and at Hampton the 139th New York, and 
the soldiers in the Chesapeake General Hos- 
pital, the last equal to a regiment. Paymas- 
ters Arthur W. Fletcher and O. B. Latham 
went at the same time to that department of 
the arm}'. Fletcher, who I was told was a 
nephew of Grace Fletclier, Daniel Webster's 
first wife, being the senior in rank, was con- 
sidered to be in charge. The journey was by 
way of Baltimore and the Chesapeake bay. 

Perhaps no one knows what good a part of 
our army was doing at Suffolk, but it was an 
outpost, held by a few thousand men, under 
command of General John J. Peck, who had 
seen some service in Mexico, and had re- 
joined the army from civil life. 

While at Suffolk I was one night at a small 
public house, and the rebel landlord, after 
seeing my luggage, lodged me in a room so 
queer and remote, so accessible from the ex- 
terior by windows opening on shed roofs, that 



248 Sixty Years in Concord. 

it seemed prudent to protect the money-chest 
with a guard of two soldiers selected from a 
Pennsylvania buck-tail regiment, and there 
was reason afterward to think this was a fort- 
unate precaution. 

On the hotel table was fried beefsteak, thin 
and tough as sole-leather, witli wlieaten rolls, 
clayey white on the outside, dark and heavy 
as pig lead within. Such Virginia cookery 
as came to Northern observation during the 
war fell short of its ancient reputation. 

Among incidents of this first visit to 
" sacred soil " Avas a call on the rebel guerilla 
Harry Gilmor, then in the jail at Norfolk. 
He did not expect to be confined many days, 
and his shelves were loaded with cold fowl 
and pastry supplied by rebel friends. 

At Newport News were visible the topmasts 
of the old frigates " (^ongress " and '' Cum- 
berland," which had been sunk by the ''Mer- 
rimack" ten months before. When Commo- 
dore Smith in the nav}^ department, heard 
that the '' Congress " hauled down her flag 
before she sunk, he said, " Joe's dead." Joe 
was his son in command of the " Congress." 
He was dead. 

At the Chesapeake General Hospital the 
surgeon-in-charge was turning that institu- 
tion over to a successor. There was a show 



Personal Recollections. 249 

of dignified, shallow politeness going on be- 
tween these people, and they were exhibiting 
nice surgical instruments to one another, but 
it seemed to me that the departing doctor 
wotild be willing to applj a scalpel to the 
anatomy of his successor. 

My disbursements amounted to but |83,- 
948.72 of the larger sum provided, and get- 
ting back to Washington, after a week's 
absence, tliey inquired at the paymaster-gen- 
eral's office what had become of our com- 
mander-in-chief, Fletcher, of whom reports 
had come tliat he was enjoying too well the 
hospitalities of the garrison at Fortress Mon- 
roe ; but he returned in about two weeks. 

In April, 1868 (20-27), I paid the Eighth, 
Forty-first, Forty-fifth, and Fifty-fourth New 
York regiments, near Falmouth, and the 
15od New York, near Alexandria, Va., dis- 
bursing 1168,567.58. All but the last of 
these regiments were in Howard's division 
of the Third Army Corps, and nearl}^ all the 
men were originally from Germany. The 
Eiglitli was commanded by Col. Felix, Prince 
Salm-Salm, a near-sighted, scholarly-looking, 
attractive German, a gentleman of a class 
perhaps less numerous now than formerly, 
ever ready for soldierly experience and adven- 
ture in any cause, like Emin Pacha, provided 



250 Sixty Years in Concord. 

the pay be good. This was just before the 
battle of Chancellorsville (May 3-5). There 
had been a period of inaction after the unfor- 
tunate Burnside assault on Fredericksburg, 
and amusements had relieved the monotony 
of camp. There had been some racing, and 
Col. Salm-Salm had nearly broken his neck by 
his horse's falling at a hurdle. This did not 
prevent his giving a dinner-party, the evening 
of April 22, at his comfortable quarters, in 
tents pitched on a moderate elevation pro- 
tected by a few low trees. At tliis dinner 
General Daniel E. Sickles was the principal 
guest, and to it he came in full martial attire, 
cantering into camp followed by an aid and 
an orderly. Madame Salm-Salm was the only 
lady at the table. A young colored woman, 
with regular features of sable blackness, 
wearing a gay turban, stood behind the chair 
of her mistress, to whose evident personal 
beauty she made an admirable background. 
The host and hostess of this festive occasion, 
as well as General Sickles (who not long 
before had shot Philip Barton Key), had had 
in their lives more than the ordinary share of 
adventure. Salm-Salm was perhaps thirty- 
five, the second son of a princely family in 
Germany ; had served in the armies of Prus- 
sia and Austria, w^asted his resources by 



Personal Recollections. 251 

extravagant living in Vienna, and emigrated 
to America when the civil war broke out. 
Madame Salm-Salm Svas born in Baltimore, 
confessed to twenty-three years, and wa& 
christened Agnes Leclercq. She grew up a 
beauty, and took to horsemanship, — not to 
ordinary riding either, for, after instruction 
at a Philadelphia circus, in the spring of 1858^ 
she made a successful public appearance. 
She visited Southern and Western cities as a 
rider and dancer, and in the autumn of that 
year established herself in New York. She 
married, but Immdrum life did not suit her, 
and one morning she walked out from her 
home and never went back to it. By way of 
making the affair proper, she got a divorce- 
After living some months at Havana, she 
came to Washington just after the war broke 
out, and did not permit herself to be forgot^ 
ten, until in 1862, to the surprise of the gos- 
sips, she married Prince Salm-Salm. 

After our war was over the Prince went to 
Mexico, became chief of staff to the Emperor 
Maximillian, and was uncomfortably near 
being shot beside that unfortunate Austrian 
when the empire collapsed, but was saved 
someliow by his wife. When war was 
declared between France and Prussia in 
1870, Salm-Salm was a major in the Grena- 



252 Sixty Years in Concord. 

dier guards of Prussia, and was shot dead at 
Gravelotte,one of the early battles of that war. 

I never saw the Prince after that dinner at 
Falmouth; but one morning in tlie summer 
of 1865, a military friend remarked in my 
office at Concord that the Princess Salm-Salm 
was at the Phaniix hotel. It seemed as if he 
must be mistaken, but, passing that hostelry 
later in the day, I saw her leave its door to 
take a carriage. As a result of her persistent 
entreaties all through the year 1864, her hus- 
band, who was then at the West in the army 
under Gen. George H. Thomas, had been 
commissioned a brigadier-general. 

Madame Sahn-Salm told the story of her 
life in our army, in Mexico, and as a nurse in 
the Franco-Prussian war, in a book published 
in 1877, entitled " Ten Years of My Life." 
In that volume she does General Sickles and 
Provost-Marshal-General James B. Fry the 
favor of mention, among man}^ others, and 
speaks also of " good old Governor Gilmore 
of New Hampshire." She had probably 
availed herself of the friendly offices of these 
gentlemen to obtain theloDg-souglit general's 
commission for Felix. Her book is untruth- 
ful, and her comments on public men of that 
time and on the conduct of the war are of no 
value. 



Personal Recollections. 253 

In May and June, 1863, near Culpeper 
Court House, I paid a part of the First Ver- 
mont Cavalry ; near Alexandria, the 153d 
New York, and at Falmouth, the Third and 
Fifth Michigan, the Seventeenth Maine, and 
elsewhere a portion of the First Massachu- 
setts Cavalry, which consumed f 151, 51 2.69. 

Then came the Gettysburg campaign. 
About July 1 it was rumored in the streets 
of AVashington that rebel cavalry were in 
Maryland, and it was surprising to discover 
the ill-concealed satisfaction which this de- 
veloped in some occupants of minor official 
places. The battle of Gettysburg, the crisis 
of the war, was won on July 2 and 3, and 
Vicksburg surrendered to General Grant on 
July 4. When this news was bulletined in 
Washington, rebel sympathizers went into 
permanent retirement. 

To revert to Concord : These great events 
were a painful shock to certain citizens of 
New Hampshire who were assembled in con- 
vention in the state-house yard on the Fourth 
of July. Ex-President Pierce was presiding. 
A portrait of Vallandigham, the chief copper- 
head of Ohio, whom the Statesman called 
'' the great Unpronounceable," was displayed 
on the platform. Voorhees, of like repute in 
Indiana, spoke. The government was de- 



254 Sixty Years in Concord. 

nouncecl, its chief magistrate contemned, and 
the war dechired a failure. Tidings of the 
victory at Gettysburg, which reached the 
platform, were pronounced an abolition lie, 
told to distress the convention. This meet- 
ing was timed to give moral aid to Lee's 
attempt at invasion of the North, and I never 
doubted that it was held on some hint obtained 
from Richmond.* 

In July and August I paid all the soldiers 
in convalescent camp, and the 153d New York. 
Operations were disturbed, about August 5, 
by the absconding of a clerk, who was fortu- 
nately captured, and all his plunder (140,000) 
recovered. 

In September I paid at Brandy Station, 
Va., the Twelfth Indiana Battery, the 110th 
Pennsylvania, Seventeenth Maine, Fortieth 
and 106 til New York regiments. 

In November, at the same place, I paid the 
First Sharpshooters, Third and Fifth Michi- 
gan, Seventeenth Maine, Fortieth New York, 
Twentieth Indiana, and the 110th Pennsyl- 
vania. These were all brigaded under the 
command of Gen. Regis de Trobriand, an ex- 

* Had Lee gained that battle, the Democrats would have 
risen and stopped the war. With the city of New York and 
Oovernor Seymour and Governor Parker in New Jersey, and 
a majority in Pennsylvania, as they then would have had, 
they would have so crippled us as to end the contest. That 
they would have attempted it we at home know.— Li/e of 
Michard Henry Dana, vol. 2, p. 275. 



Personal Recollections. 255 

cellent soldier, afterward the writer of " Four 
Years with the Army of the Potomac." I 
cannot tell better the experiences of that 
period than by quoting now what I wrote 
then to the Statesman. 

[November 17, 1863.] 

A Night in an Ambulance. 

Near Bealton station a terrific peal of 
thunder with a blinding flash of lightning, 
followed by rain, and darkness that might be 
felt, brought our party to a halt. We had 
been for half an hour groping our way by 
the aid of a dim lantern borne along: the road 
a little distance in advance. It was not later 
than 6 o'clock, but that hour past sunset, in 
this latitude, at this season, brings most out- 
door enterprises to a pause. So it did our 
journey. We cast about in search of a place 
to bivouac. A cluster of small oaks seemed 
best to serve the purpose, and the united 
efforts of men and beasts were just sufficient 
to place our ambulance within the partial 
.shelter of the trees. The rain continued to 
pour in torrents, and peal after peal of thun- 
der crashed through the grove like reports 
from a battery of twelve pounders. 

We left Washington that morning, most 
of us bearing passes as broad as a bill of 



256 Sixty Years in Concord. 

lading, bound for the Army of the Poto- 
mac. Bouncing along over the Orange & 
Alexandria Kailroad, we reached Warren- 
ton Junction to find Captain Mattocks, of 
the Seventeenth Maine regiment, and forty 
other good fellows, ready to escort us seven- 
teen miles further, to the journey's end near 
Brandy Station. The rails had not been 
relaid beyond Warrenton since the rebels 
retired behind Culpeper. 

Within the ambulance was a gentleman 
who left Natchez, Miss., when the war broke 
out, because he was a Union man, and had a 
desire to preserve undisturbed the vertebrae 
between his head and body, which some 
zealous friends had bought a rope wherewith 
to sunder. In short, he was threatened with 
hana-inQr. You can ascertain what he thinks 
of this rebellion without talking with him a 
great while. I believe good Governor Berry 
used now and then to call this an unholy rebel- 
lion. Our friend in the ambulance goes fur- 
ther. In this connection he uses words found 
in Scripture with great force and earnestness^ 
His opinions are not those of the Union Dem- 
ocrat., of Manchester, N. H. 

Opposite liim sat a tall young fellow from 
Georgetown, D. C., who liad brought gaiters 
and spurs, to be ready for either a dance or 



.Personal RecoUectio)ii<. 257 

a canter. There were two other inmates 
beside your correspondent. One was the 
driver, the other a sutler. They have the 
zoological names of Wolff and Bull. 

The captain guessed we might as well stay 
where we were until daylight, so, stationing 
liis guard, lie and his lieutenants clambered 
in among us. Private Wolff, of tlie 110th 
Pennsylvania, put a fresh candle in the lan- 
tern, which, he remarked, had been confis- 
cated from the hospital department. Mr. 
Bull produced a Bologna sausage, the young 
fellow from Georgetown some apples. Captain 
Mattocks a loaf of army bread, another indi- 
vidual contributed a cold roast cliicken, 
and our Mississippi friend a bottle of ])lack- 
beriy brandy, wliich he declared to be a 
sovereign balm for ailments resulting from 
change of temperature and drink. Although 
our table furniture consisted of nothing but 
a jack-knife, which Mr. Bull declared he 
l)rought from *' Indianny " at the beginning 
of the war, still we made a very jolly sup- 
per. 

It ought to be mentioned that the and:)U- 
lance was drawn by two mules, called Robert 
and Rebecca by Private Wolff, both of them 
being in sleek condition ; indeed, so sleek 
that two British officers, who came down on 

17 



258 Sixty Years hi Concord. 

the same train with us to visit the army, 
remarked, in passing our establishment, that 
'' those 'osses were very fat." Private Wolff 
was gratified at the compliment, 'but judged 
the gentleman could hardl}^ belong to the 
cavalry service. He remarked, furtlier, that 
he thought a great deal of these two animals, 
as did his predecessor on the box, who had 
gone liome on a furlough and forgotten to 
deliver several little parcels of money wliicli 
his comrades entrusted to his care. 

Eight people might sleep very comfortably 
in an ambulance if they had each undergone 
amputation of both legs. We were unable 
to make any satisfactary arrangement until 
about 10 o'clock, when three of us scrambled 
outside, and sat down, like an Indian pow- 
wow, on a rubbei' blanket, and, leaning 
cigainst a tree, snatched some refreshing- 
naps, interrupted only by olfactor}^ evidence 
of the neighborhood of a horse who had for- 
ever finished pawing in the valley and re- 
joicing in his strength. These dead animals 
are passed at every curve in the road, each 
now representing about rtl25 of the "five 
twenty loan." Nobody thinks it worth Avhile 
to take off their liides and hoofs. 

Behind us, around a big, blazing fire, stood 
a majority of our escort, drying tlieir coats 



Personal Recollections. 259 

and blankets, while others were lying full 
length on the ground, with naught between 
them and mother earth except a thin layer 
of boughs. It is wonderful with what non- 
clialance these men bear all sorts of exposure 
and encounter every danger. A cup of steam- 
ing coffee puts them all right after a com- 
plete drenching on the most watchful picket- 
line. Only a week before, these very men 
around us were- wading the Rappahannock 
in the face of the enemy's fire, and a mere 
rain-soaking is nothing compared with that. 
Mosby, or any other enterprising robber, 
might have made a good thing by gobbling 
us up that night. Our ambulance and con- 
tents, with others before and behind us on 
the road, would have bought half of Rich- 
mond at current rates of premium, and enti- 
tled us to the most distinguished hospitali- 
ties of tlie Libb}^ prison. 

Before daylight Private Wolff discovered 
that Rebecca had lain down in the mud, 
from which he aroused her, and gave her 
a good currying with a wisp of ha}'. The 
men around the fire made a kettle of cof- 
fee, and before sunrise we were on our way 
again. 

Tlie Rappahannock river, at the station of 
the same uame, is hardly so wide as the Con- 



260 Sixty Years in Concord. 

toocook at Fislierville. We crossed it by a 
pontoon bridge, laid down by the rebels, 
which they liad no time to withdraw before 
tlie impetuous advance of the column under 
Sedgwick. South of the river and close to 
the water is an eminence about as high as 
Kent's hill in Concord, crowned with an 
ugly-looking fortification supposed by the 
Johnnies (as Private Wolff calls them) to 
command the bridge and adjacent ford. A 
cluster of graves not far away is now the 
only physical evidence of the gallantry with 
which the river was crossed and the heights 
carried with the bayonet. Even as we looked 
on the scene of this recent success, the roar 
of cannon in the advance told of another 
possible encounter. It was a light battery 
with Kilpatrick's cavalry, shelling the enemy 
beyond Culpeper. The whole army was 
put under orders to be ready to move. 

Between Rappahannock and Brandy Sta- 
tion is as o-ood a field for battle as can be 
found in all Virginia. It was here that the 
column which crossed at Kelley's Ford joined 
that of Sedgwick, and the whole army de- 
bouched upon this plain, and moved for- 
ward in battle order. This is said to have 
been the best opportunity to see at one glance 
the whole Army of the Potomac which has 



Pergonal Recollections. 2(31 

occurred in the existence of that army.* 
It was ahnost noon when we reached the 
camp of the Seven teentli Maine regiment. 



A DAY IX THE AILMY. 



This brigade was the first to cross at 
Kelley's Ford, in the recent forcing of the 
enemy's lines back from the ]{appahainiock. 
It is commanded by Col. Regis de Trobriand, 
a French gentleman who married a lady in 
Brooklyn, N. Y., and took up a residence in 
this country. He is an accomplished soldier 
and scholar, speaking several languages flu- 
ently, and sketcliing witli skill, either with 
colors or with pencil. He is the only for- 
eign officer against Avhom I have never lieard 
a word of detraction in the army. For the 
gallantry and spirit with which this brigade 
advanced and crossed at Kelley's Ford, botli 
the brigade and its commander have been 
complimented by name in. the general orders 

* General de Trobriand says,—" This grand military 
deployment offered one of the finest spectacles which could 
be imagined. Let one picture to himself two army corps 
marching on the centre, in line of battle, in mass, the 
artillery in the intervals, and on the roads the flanks cov- 
ered by two divisions in column, the skirmishers in advance 
the cavalry on the two wings; the reserves covering the 
wagons in the rear; and all this mass of humanity in per- 
fect order, rising or falling gradually according to the 
"^ u i-*^"^ ^^ ^^^^ plain, with the noise of the cannon, 
which did not cease throwing projectiles on the rear guard 
of the Confederates in retreat. Such was the moving 
picture which was given us to enjov during that whole 
afternoon." 



262 Sixty Years in Concord. 

of the Army of the Potomac. It includes 
the Third and Fifth Michigan, Seventeentli 
Maine, Fortieth New York, First United 
States Sharpshooters, and tlie 110th Penn- 
sylvania regiments. These Michigan regi- 
ments have been in tliis army from the first 
Battle of Bull Run until now, and their 
fame is like that of the Second New Hamp- 
shire, exceeding the latter in that they shared 
in the great battle of Antietam and some 
later engagements, in which tlie Second did 
not. 

Lieut.-Col. John Pulford, commanding tlie 
Fifth Michigan, has had a singular experi- 
ence. He was a captain in the same regi- 
ment at the battle of Malvern Hill, when it 
was supporting a battery. A Minie ball 
struck him close beside the right eye, fur- 
rowing along the skull toward the ear. 
From that instant until tliirty days after- 
ward all is a blank to him. He was left 
unconscious on the field, picked up and 
carried to Richmond, exchanged, and finally 
came to his senses in a hospital in Baltimore, 
where, he says, he could not refrain from 
abusino- the attendants around his bedside 
for trying to convince him that he was not 
still in the smoke and fire of Malvern Hill. 
Of all the famous regiments of the army. 



Personal BeeoUeetioiiS. '268 

none will fill a brighter page in Instoiy than 
those two from Michigan. 

The Fortieth New York was formerly 
known as the Mozart regiment. It is now 
commanded by Col. Thomas W. Egan, w^iom 
T remember to have met in Chicago several 
years ago, and who was a contractor in bnild- 
ing the Cheshire railroad in New Hampshire. 
Having had other regiments and parts of 
reeiments consolidated with it, this is still 
almost up to the maximum strength, ft 
was a favorite one Avith General Kearne}^ 
wdio formerly commanded the division, of 
whose gallantr}^ the men wdll never cease 
telling. Tn the Kelley's Ford affair, tliis 
regiment captured several contrabands from 
the enemy. One of these informed me that 
he formerly belonged to Sergeant Thomas 
of the Fifth Alabama regiment. By retreat- 
ino- into the woods he lost the whereabouts 
of his regiment, and on emerging from liis 
hiding-place he was picked up by Colonel 
Egan. He says General Lee is held in high 
estimation through tlie South, but that Bragg 
is known as Corporal Bragg, and the sol- 
(bevs of the rebel army in the West are 
often fired by the interrogatory whether they 
belong to Corporal Bragg's army. He was 
with his regiment at Gettysburg, and a wit- 



264 Sixty Years in Ooticord. 

ness of the terrific charge of Ewell, which 
I have often heard officers say no division 
of our army would have attempted ; and, 
indeed, it is doubtful if Ewell's men would 
have made the essa}^ had they not been told 
they were to charge Pennsylvania militia. 
It is fortunate for the country that no mil- 
itiamen were sighting the artiller}^ which 
rent wliole companies of the advancing col- 
umn at each discliarge. 

Our contraband says that such of the 
rebels as survived the charge admitted that 
they were terribly defeated. 

He gives a rather doubtful account of the 
degree of destitution existing among the 
colored people of Alabama, many of whom, 
he assured me, had nothing to eat but ashes 
and water. He said they might shoot " pos- 
sums," which are as good to eat as hogs, if 
the}' liad guns, but firearms are denied to 
them. 

He says a black man in the Southern army 
can make a heap of money b}' washing offi- 
cers' clothing, twenty-five cents per piece 
being paid for such service. He says they 
bring along portions of their apparel and 
ask " de cullud hoys to knock out sum ob de 
dirt," and if they have more success than 
Avas anticipated, the reward is greater than 



Personal Recollections. 265 

the standard price above mentioned. Colo- 
nel Egan gave him a paper collar to wash, 
which of course came to pieces under his 
manipulations, much to his consternation. 
He apologized by the explanation that he 
had not been used to washing sucli line 
goods in the Southern army. 

This contraband declares thiit he would 
willingly have been captured, but that Massa 
Thomas had obtained a furlough for thirty 
days, and he was going home with him to a 
place on the Alabama river above Montgom- 
ery, where Massa Thomas's father has a store 
and plantation. Although making heaps of 
money by washing, to use his own words, still 
it took a great pile of it to buy anything, 
*' do's shoes costing me forty dollars," show- 
ing a pair of decent brogans. Before I fin- 
ished conversation with him our friend from 
Mississippi came up, and hearing that his 
name was Henry Jackson, took a sharp look 
at him, that being the cognomen of one of 
the eighteen or twent}^ likely boys left by 
him in his sudden exit from tlie South. This 
was another Jackson. 

The Third Corps was to-day reviewed by 
Major-General Sedgwick, and British visitors 
to the army, on a plain,- half way between 
Brandv Station and the residence of Hon. 



266 Sixty Years in Concord. 

John Minor Botts. The remarks of this bri- 
gade were not altogether complinientar}' to 
their blockade-running guests. I Iiave never 
before seen these men in so good spirits. 
Exhilarated by the last crossing of the Rap- 
pahannock, they seem to have new confidence 
in themselves and General Meade, and hope 
to cross the Rapidan l^efore winter closes the 
campaign. 

[November 19, 1863.] 
It has been mentioned that the First regi- 
ment of Sharpshooters is one of tlie component 
forces of the brigade of which I have been 

o 

writing. A portion of to-day has been passed 
in their camp. The performances and the 
renown of this regiment are equal to the ex- 
pectations with which they took the field. 
It is armed with Sharp's rifles, which are 
" sighted " with more care than the ordinary 
carbine of that manufacturer. Tlie heavy 
telescope rifles which they brought into the 
field were abandoned after the siege of York- 
town, at which place they served a good 
purpose, but of course weapons so gigantic 
proved to be unsatisfactorj^ for marching and 
skirmishing. These Shai*p's rifles are alto- 
gether more useful, although not so perfect 
for target shooting. 

Company E, wliicli was recruited in Con- 



Personal Recollections. 26T 

cord, lias thirty-three men present for dnty. 
It is commanded^ b}^ Capt. William G. An- 
drews. The members of this company have 
the impression that they have been lost sight 
of by friends at liome, because of being* 
incorporated in a regiment which has nine 
companies from otlier states. " California 
Joe," a marksman who won considerable re- 
nown at Yorktown, where his activity and 
skill made a piece of rebel artillery useless, 
has been discharged for disability. 

Some marvellous stories of the skill of the 
Sharpshooters are still told. It is said that 
at Kelley's Ford, where they were sent for- 
ward as skirmisliers — as, indeed, they are in 
nearly every battle in which they participate 
— the rebels suffered so severely in their rifle 
pits that they dared not show their heads 
above the place of concealment, but, raising 
their guns to a level, fired at random from 
their coverts. It is certain the rebels have 
a wholesome fear of them, and, recognizing- 
them by the peculiar report of their rifles^ 
keep as well out of sight as possible. This 
regiment is now commanded by Lieut.-CoL 
Trepp, an officer of Swiss nativity. 

An amazing tendency towards dress i^s 
noticeable in the Army of the Potomac. 
Suits of velvet are fashionable, trimmed with 



268 Sixty Years in Concorde 

gold cord, and adorned with the insignia of 
rank to whicli the wearer is entitled. To 
the latter may be added the Kearney cross, 
or the badge of the army corps to which the 
officer belongs. Corduroy is worn to a con- 
siderable extent by cavalry officers. These 
fanciful suits, are in addition to others made 
of materials and in style to correspond 
with the regulations of the army. An offi- 
cer setting forth to make an evening call 
on a friend is often a sight worth seeing. 
The proximity of this army to Washington 
enables one to manage these expenditures 
for dress very readily. Tliere is, so I am 
told, a Jew, who has obtained in some way 
the exclusive right to sell clotliing in this 
army, and he is, as may well be supposed, 
doinp- a thrivino- business. The number of 
these sons of Abraham who manage to attacli 
themselves to the army is large. Many of 
the sutlers are of Hebrew lineage. One of 
them, who is packing up to go away on the 
next train, has a haversack full of parcels 
of money, entrusted to him by soldiers, to 
carry to the express office in Washington. 
The burden of his thought is shown by his 
remark, *' If some folks had all dis monish 
to carry up for de boys, dey make as much 
as fifty tollars ; scharge de poys twendy-vive 
.shents apeas." 



Personal Recollections. 269 

About a quarter of a mile from this camp 
is the home of Hon. Jolm Minor Botts. 
This distinguished gentleman resides in an 
ordinary Virginia farmhouse, to which are 
attached outbuildings of decent description. 
He has about a thousand acres of land, some 
of wliicli he has purchased since the war 
began. This farm has suffered less from 
depredations than others in its vicinity. Mr. 
Botts has more sheep and cattle than all 
others of the region round about, his flock 
of the former numbering about one hundred 
and fifty head. 

Mr. Botts manifests a generous hospitality 
to the officers of our army, having frequent 
parties at dinner, and making welcome to 
liis hearth all who choose to call on him. 
He has extended the same civilities to the 
rebel generals, making an exception of 
Stuart, the cavalry officer, whom he does not 
allow to cross his threshold. He is under 
parole to the rebel government not to dis- 
close anything whicli may come to his knowl- 
edge detrimental to the rebel cause. 

The parole given by Mr. Botts exempts 
him usually from the pilfering of the rebel 
army, and when our forces are in the neigh- 
borhood a detachment of the provost guard 
is placed in charge of his property. When 



21 i) Sixty Years in Concord. 

the ]'ebels last occupied this region tliey 
burned his fences ; so on the return of Gen- 
eral Meade a detail was made from our armj^ 
to rebuild tliem. After a time the detailed 
men became weary of rail-splitting, and com- 
pleted the repairs with handy materials taken 
from the borders of " secesh neighbors. By 
the rank and file of the army Mr. Botts is 
not believed to be an unconditional Union 
man. A soldier told me liB had counted 
among his sheep nine bell-wethers, and nine 
different marks upon the sheep ; therefore lie 
believed Mr. Botts was the nominal Union 
man for the county to save the cattle and 
sheep of the neighborhood. He said he did 
not see how a man could save himself from 
the depredations of both armies unless he 
carried water on both shoulders. The wife 
of a rebel colonel residing on the next farm 
told me she had never heard Mr. Botts say 
anything about the Union. He is writing 
liis impressions about the war and the times. 
So fast as any considerable portion of this is 
completed, he sends it to a place of safety.* 

[January 22, 1864.] 
Tlie First New Hampshire Battery is en- 
camped on the estate of Hon. John Minor 

* In 1866 Harper & Brothers published " The Great Rebel- 
lion: its secret history, rise, progress, and disastrous fail- 
ure," by Mr. Botts, a most uninteresting book. 



Personal Recollections. 271 

Botts, in a spot well sheltered by trees, of 
sufficient elevation to be tolerabh^ free from 
mud, and to furnish a healthful position for 
both men and horses. It was this battery 
Avhich lured a body of rebels to swift destruc- 
tion at Gettysburg. Being posted in a good 
position, and ordered to husband his ammu- 
nition, Captain Edgell directed the firing to 
cease, and retired his men to a shelter in the 
i-ear of the guns, while he remained to Avatch 
the course of the battle. Seeing the artillery 
without visible protection, the rebels thought 
it was abandoned, and advanced a brigade at 
tlie charge to capture it. At this opportune 
moment Captain Edgell recalled his can- 
noneers, and their rapid discharges rent the 
advancing column. After eight rounds were 
fired, what men were left of the brigade 
threw down tlieir arms and came in as 
prisoners. 

In illustration of the nonchalauce with 
Avhich sutlers are placed outside the pale of 
civilization, I ma}^ mention that a fellow- 
passenger on the Orange & Alexandria Rail- 
road pointed out to me, with all possible 
seriousness, the scene of a recent accident. 
'' There," said he, with unfeigned gravity, 
'' is where the cars ran off the track, killing 
tliree men a)id a sutler.^' 



272 Sixty Years in Co}ieord. 

Curious extremes of weather occur this 
winter in this region. A few mornings since 
the sun was shining warmly, and I heard the 
familiar note of the l)lue-l)ird, while flyings 
squirrels were performing their eccentric 
evolutions in close vicinity ; yet on the fol- 
lowing day the air was piercing cold, and 
two or tliree inches of snow fell. 



About the end of tlie year 186B came a 
payment harder than any to which I had 
been assigned. Just before Christmas day, 
visiting the oiiice of the paymaster-general, 
it appeared that paymasters were being- 
selected by lot to go to the army and dis- 
burse pay and bounty money to reenlisted 
veteran volunteers, a difficult, and at that 
season an unwelcome, duty. I remarked 
incautiously, '' Why does not tlie colonel 
select the men he' wants and tell them* to 
go?" When I returned to my quarters, 
there lay an order for me to go. So between 
December 25, 1863, and January 7, 1864, 
near the Rapidan, in the wintry wind driv- 
ing down from the Blue Ridge, I made 
the rolls and paid the First and Second 
Sharpshooters, Third and Fifth Michigan, 
Fortieth and Eighty-sixth New York, Fifty- 
seventh, Sixty-third, 105th, and llOtli Penn- 



Personal Recollections. 273 

sylvaiiia regiments, Battery E First Rhode 
Island Artillery, the First New Hampshire, 
Fourth Maine, Tenth Massacdiusetts, and 
Twelfth New York batteries, to the tune of 
•*34:>,542.98. Tliis was about half a mile 
from the headquarters of the army, and I 
happened once to see General Meade. While 
working at this payment, I learned by expe- 
rience that it is difficult to do satisfactory 
pen work and correct arithmetical calcu- 
lations using the heads of l)arrels and the 
sides of boxes for desks. 

There were no better soldiers in tlie Arm\^ 
of the Potomac than the Sharpshootej-s, the 
Seventeentli Maine, Third and Fiftli Michi- 
gan, Fortieth New York, and tlie 110th 
Pennsylvania, regiments, lieretofore men- 
tioned. In April, 1864, they became the 
Second Brigade of the Third Division of the 
Second Corps. Tlie experience of officei-s 
tells in a way the service of regiments. Col. 
Caspar Trepp, of the Sharpshooters, was 
killed at Mine liun ; Col. George W. West, 
of the Seventeenth Maine, was wounded in 
the Wilderness, and discharged in March, 
1865, with the rank of brevet brigadier; 
Col. Byron Pv. Pierce, of the Third Michigan,' 
was made brigadier-general in June, 1864; 
Col. John Pulford, whom I liave mentioned 



274 Sixty Yea7's m Qoncord^ 

before, wa.s wounded again in the Wilder- 
ness, and mustered out at the end of the war 
as a brevet brigadier, having served from 
beginning to end, and more tlian once shot 
nigh unto death in tlie Army of tlie Poto- 
mac. 

In the " History of the Seeoiid Army 
Corps," Gen. Franeis A. Walker says, — 

On April 22, 1864, the reenforced corps 
was reviewed by General Grant. Of all the 
gallant regiments which passed the review- 
ing officer, two excited especial admiration, — 
the 148th Pennsylvania and the Fortieth 
New York, Colonel Egan. 

* * * * ^- * 

On the morning of May 23, 1864, a bridge 
over the Noi'th Anna was held by troops of 
Kershaw's Confederate division. This Han- 
cock determined to carry. Two of Birney's 
brigades, now under Col. Thomas W. Egan 
(Fortieth New York), and Col. Byron R. 
l^ierce (Third Michigan), Avere formed for 
attack, and at half ])ast six in the morning 
charged across the helds from nearly oppo- 
site directions converging upon the earth- 
work. The two brigades advanced in splen- 
did style, over open ground, vying with each 
other in gallantry of bearing and rapidity of 
movement, and, carrying the intrenchments 
without a halt, the enemy were driven pell- 
mell across the river and the bridge seized. 



Personal Uevollectinns. 275 

June 16, 1864. In front of Petersburo-. 

At eight o'clock Egan led his brigaxte in 
a brilliant assanlt upon one of the Confed- 
erate redoubts (Redan No. 12), carryino- it 
HI the very style which he had displayed on 
the North Anna. In the assault Emm was 
wounded, but not severely. 

October 27, 1864. Boydton Plank Koad. 

At the hrst sound of the enemy's attack 
on Pierce, Hancock sent Mitchell to General 
Egan, directing Idm to face about and 
assail the^ enemy. When Mitchell reached 
tTcneral Egan, he found that gallant officer 
with the instinct of a true soldier, already in 
motion. It was quite evident that in taking- 
position on the secondary ridge, and opening 
against Mott, the enemy were oblivious to 
the presence of Egan's troops, and when he 
burst upon their right and rear, it must have 
been like a bolt from a clear sky. Two 
eolors and many hundreds of prisoners were 
captured. 

One morning in March, 1864, my wife and 
myself met at the Treasury Department Mr. 
John E. Embler, of Newburg, N. Y., and 
two ladies, his relatives, with all of whom 
we had liad some previous acquaintance. 
He was proposing to start a national bank at 
l)is liome on the Hudson, and had a lively 
curiosity to see the process of printing 
national bank notes. Alsitors were not geif- 
erally admitted to the treasurv printing 



276 Sixty Years in Concord. 

(lepartmeiit, mid liow to get in there was the 
question. He exclaimed that being from 
New York he would appeal to Secretary 
Seward. M}^ suggestion that Mr. Seward 
must be a very busy man availed nothing. 
Awa}^ Mr. Embler went to the State Depart- 
ment, and came hurrying back directly with 
a message from Mr. Seward inviting us all 
to call. Rather reluctantly we went: it 
seemed as if we must be intruding unwar- 
rantably, but the secretary of state put us at 
ease by a most kindly reception, and by a 
friendly interest in Mr. Endjler's plans. He 
sent for Mr. Maunsell B. Field, an assistant 
secretary of the treasury, on whose behalf 
Secretary Chase in tlie following June pet- 
ulantly resigned his secretaryship, and Mr. 
Field (afterward the author of '' Memories 
of Many Men and Some Women " — a book 
within the pages of winch may be found an 
annising account of the author's experience 
in seeking office at the hands of President 
Pierce), although he looked very cross, con- 
sented to give Mr. Embler the desired access 
to the printing rooms. 

Mr. Embler then, in a rather hortatory- 
way, enjoined it on the secretar}^ to go ahead 
and put down the Rebellion, and Mr. Seward 
said in reply that it was all important that 



Personal Recollections. 277 

the public temper be right, for, said he, 
'' Mr. Embler, you know that at the hist elec- 
tion in your own county in New York the 
Republican vote was onlj^ a little larger than 
the Democratic; in other words, Jefferson 
Davis showed almost as mucli strength as 
Abraham Lincoln," — and so he entertained 
us at least half an hour with the most attrac- 
tive conversation to which T ever listened. 
Even when, after one or two essays to leave, 
from whicli he restrained us, we had finalh' 
gone, he hurried to the hall to say, in a very 
gracious Vt^ay, that his daugliter Avould have 
a reception that afternoon, and would be 
glad to see the ladies of our party. Nothing 
could have been more kind, and tlie ladies 
Avent to a charming reception at the great 
house on Lafayette square, where Mr. Seward 
a year later was so nearly slain by an assassin. 
After tliat half hour in the great parlor of 
the old State Department, I never wondered 
why Governor Seward had many devoted 
personal friends. Secretary Stanton, of the 
War Department, with whom I once had an 
interview, was a grizzly bear in comparison. 
I never saw President Lincoln in Wash- 
ington but twice, once at a White House 
reception, and once at a hotel on the avenue 
where he stopped for a glass of water ; but T 



278 Sixty Years in Concot'd. 

dwelt for a time in tlie same liouse with Mr. 
W. O. Stoddard, an attache of the White 
House, author of '• Inside tlie White House 
in War Times." There was some idle side- 
walk criticism of tlie president, the only 
charge that I remember hearing being that 
he did not read the newspapers. 

In summer evenings on Pennsylvania ave- 
nue there was often seen a man whose strong, 
impressive face and sturdy figure fixed itself 
in my memory ; years afterward, looking at 
a portrait of Walt Whitman, I discovered 
the unknown to have been that poet. 

I paid the Sharpshooters, and the before- 
mentioned Maine, Michigan, New York, and 
Pennsylvania regiments, down to Ma}^ 1864 ; 
then I was ordered to Concord to pa}^ soldiers 
on leave of absence or mustered out, veteran 
reserve men, etc. This order came to me 
unexpectedly, brought about by some one 
in the Navy Department. That department 
was hostile to Senator Hale because of his 
public rebuke to Secretary Welles, in the 
latter part of 1861, for employing George 
P. Morgan (Welles's brother-in-law) to buy 
ships for the government, thereby putting 
into Morgan's pocket a commission of about 
'1^70,000. Mr. Hale's term in the senate 



Personal Recollections. 279 

expired in 1(S65, and tlie question of liis 
reelection came before tlie legislature of 

1864. Maj. George P. Folsom, my prede- 
cessor at Concord, w;is doing what lie could 
to forward Mr. Hale's reelection ; therefore 
it was arranged for me to relieve liim, and 
attend merely to duties of my place. When 
the senatorial election came, it resulted in 
tlie choice of Hon. Aaron H. Cragin. 

The dut}^ at Concord was light until regi- 
ments began to come home from the war. 
In July and August, 1864, the disbursements 
were only 168,369.16, but in the correspond- 
ing months of 1865 they were thirteen times 
greater. From June, 1864, until Januar}^ 

1865, many men of the Second, Third, 
Fourth, Fifth, Seventh, and Eiolith repi- 
ments, whose terms of service had expired, 
came home, and were discharged and paid 
here ; also the Fourth Vermont at Brattle- 
boro'. 

There is probably no other house in Con- 
cord that has had so much o-reenback cur- 

o 

rency in it at any one time as has No. 167 
North Main street, which was my home at 
that period. Express charges on great sums 
of money were large, and not provided for 
in the scheme of the War Department relat- 
ing to paymasters, though necessary car 



280 Sixty Years in Concord, 

fares were. So it seemed to be necessary to 
go occasionally to Ncav York or Boston to 
exchange large treasnry drafts for currenc}'. 
The Boston sub-treasury did not cash drafts 
on its sister institution in New York, and it 
happened several times that I came home 
late with a sole-leatlier trunk full of money 
(perliaps fl50,000), which Avas kept in the 
liouse until it could be counted and arranged 
for disbursement. Tliere seemed to be no 
better way than this, although it was the 
cause of some anxiety. I liad a dog, sure 
to hear and announce the approach of any 
unwelcome stranger, and a heavily-loaded 
double gun stood in a handy place. 

As I was once leavinor New York on one 

o 

of these trips. Col. T. J. Leslie, the chief 
paymaster of the district, desired me to carry 
one hundred thousand dollars to Paymaster 
J. A. Brodhead in Boston, beside the fifty 
thousand dollars which I was carrying to 
Concord, — all in one hundred and fifty green- 
backs of one thousand dollars each, which 
could be carried in a trousers' pocket. Going 
on board a Fall River liner, the clerk said 
every room in the l)oat was engaged. The 
captain was near by, and I told him of the 
fix I was in, getting in reply merely the 
remark that no one had any business to be 



Personal Recolleetioiis. 281 

carrying so much money. There was one 
more resource. The colored stewardess was 
told that if she could get a stateroom for a 
very tired man slie would be the gainer of 
five dollars, and, in no longer time than it 
took for her to o-o to the clerk's office and 

o 

return, the key to a very satisfactory room 
was in ni}' hand. 

The sole-leather trunk before mentioned 
was the object of some attention in the rail- 
road station in Boston, as I learned years 
afterward when a baggage-man checked it 
to Concord, with the remark, " This is the 
thing that used to have so much money in it." 

When on that memorable day in April, 
1865, the shattered army of General Lee 
found a line of bayonets across its path of 
retreat, and laid down its arms, the news 
set Concord wild with rejoicing. Dignified 
citizens caught up shot-guns and spent a day 
making a racket on Main street. Tliere was 
also a demonstrative procession and some 
boisterous hilarity. 

In June, July, and August, peace being- 
restored, all the veterans came home ; and I 
paid the Second, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, 
Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh, Twelfth, Thir- 
teenth, and Fourteenth regiments, as well as 



282 Sixty Years in Concord. 

the New Hampshire Cavalry and Heavy 
Artillery. Paymaster C. O. Benedict was 
in Concord from about Aug. 1 to Sept. 10, 
1865, and paid sucli of the mustered-out 
New Hampshire regiments as are not above 
mentioned. His payments amounted to about 
1210,000, and that money primaril}^ went 
through my hands. It was a pretty haril, 
patient strain for days and nights together. 
The soldiers were anxious to get home, and 
it was desirable financially that they be dis- 
banded to ease the burdens of war. M}^ own 
disbursements for four months ending with 
August were 11,556,742.38. This was more 
than it cost to complete the Concord Rail- 
road — a large amount of money to set afloat 
in a town like ours, and some of it was 
wasted as money is in garrison towns. 

When this had been done and the last 
man in uniform had gone down the street, it 
seemed that peace had indeed come. The 
last angry shot had been fired by Grant's 
victorious legions months before in the val- 
ley of the Appomattox. Tlie Great Presi- 
dent was dead. There was no beat .of drum 
along our highways ; — the tattered standards 
of the regiments had been folded away at the 
State-house, and recruiting offices closed. 
Even our Governor's Horse Guards (who 



Persoyial Recollections. 283 

nicide tlieir first brilliant annual parade in 
June, 1860, wore a superb uniform copied 
from that of a corps of Austrian Hussars, 
gave occasional merry dancing parties and 
served famous dinners without grog, offered 
their services in the field in 1861, and were 
rejected because General Scott said there 
would be little use for cavalry) disbanded in 
December, 1865, having never had any sup- 
port from the state. 

By an order from Washington I was mus- 
tered out January 15, 1866, and the brevet 
of lieutenant-colonel came to me, for what 
the War Department was so kind as to say 
had been " faithful services." 



XIV. 

Eighteen hundred and sixty-four was the 
year of a controversy about the state-house, 
Avhich edifice, and tlie dignities of the capi- 
tal, the people of Manchester sought to cap- 
ture. The strife was ended by the laying- 
out of Capitol street and the rebuilding of 
the State-house at the expense of Concord, 
the outlay being near $175,000. The im- 
provements to the state-house cost il58,000. 
The new street was almost a necessity, but 
there was no justice in imposing the cost of 
a state capitol on a community Avith whom 
it was located by a former generation. The 
loan which Concord negotiated in 1865 to 
defray these costs has been a burdensome 
portion of its debt, and has hindered its 
growth and prosperity. It is interesting to 
trace the history of this debt through the 
annual reports of the cit}-. The credit of the 
city was so good in 1865 that its bonds sold 
for a better price than those of the United 
States. On the original issue of state-house 
bonds the interest was payable in gold, and 
gold remained for several years at a pre- 




Statesman Building— 1866. 



Personal MecoUectiofis. 285 

mium. In 1875 a fraction of the debt was 
paid, and the remainder repLac^ed with cur- 
rency bonds Jirranged to mature in install- 
ments at various dates. Tt is difficult to 
follow tlie annual interest charges with 
accuracy, but it is sufficiently exact to say 
that the portion of the principal of the debt 
which remains unpaid, twenty-seven jears 
after it was contracted, is fifty-seven thou- 
sand dollars, and when the last bond matures 
and is paid in 1896, the city will have taxed 
itself, to defray principal and interest, with- 
out reckoning the cost of Capitol street, the 
sum of three hundred and forty-seven thou- 
sand four hundred dollars. This has been 
a burden to our moderate population and 
resources, and will be felt after it is re- 
moved. 

It ought to be remembered that Concord 
people, either privately or corpora tely, have 
given to the state the site of the state- 
house and granite for the building, the site 
of the old prison, the broad original lands of 
the Asylum for the Insane and a contribu- 
tion* toward the original building, beside at 
least one half the site of the state library 
building. Some curious statistician may 
estimate the present value of these gifts. 

One of the arguments used against Con- 



286 Sixty Years in Concord. 

cord by its rivals in the state-house contro- 
versy was the riotous destruction of the 
Democratic Standard in 1861; but Col. John 
H. George, of counsel for the city, retorted 
with some reminiscences of an anti-Catholic 
mob down the river, which threw tliat spe- 
cious plea out of court. 

Returning to duty in the Statesman office, 
there were not many occurrences of sufficient 
interest to be recorded. Personal accounts 
for three years were easily adjusted with my 
partners. My army salary had been equal to 
their respective drafts on the newspaper 
treasury. Tlie gains of business, and the 
profit on a considerable investment in gov- 
ernment ])onds, made when '" seven tliirties " 
Avere below par, provided us with larger 
resources. It was concluded to erect a build- 
ing for tlie printing lousiness, and the lot at 
the southeast corner of Main aiid Hutchins 
streets was purchased. This was before the 
name of Depot street was b}^ some uninspired 
hand affixed to the last mentioned thorough- 
fare. The lot selected was a second choice. 
In the Q^eneral view it was too far down 
town, and the locality was not sustaining a 
very elevated character. During the war it 
had been occupied b}^ a cluster of shanties 



Personal Recollections. 287 

kiiuwii as the " Etliau Allen," " White Pig- 
eon," and "Ship Stores" saloons. One of 
these shanties, or another near by, had a 
painted striped pig for its sign board. Some 
rather distingnished loafers and gamblers 
frequented those places. But the situation 
proved to be what was wanted. Plans for a 
Statesman building were prepared b}^ Mr. 
Edward Dow, said by one of his townsmen 
to be " the greatest artichoke in New Hamp- 
sliire," and the building, begun in September, 
1866, was completed and occupied just 
before June, 1867. It made a satisfactory 
home for the newspaper for nearly a quarter 
of a centur3\ 

Shortly after Abraham Lincoln became 
President, in 1861, Georo-e G. Fog-o- of the 
Independent Democrat was appointed Minis- 
ter to Switzerland, and resided abroad until 
1865 ; but on the accession of Andrew John- 
.son to the Presidency, Secretary Seward 
caused George Harrington to be sent to 
Switzerland, and Mr. Fogg came home in no 
very amial)le mood. William E. Chandler, 
who had been solicitor to the Navy Depart- 
ment, had taken Mr. Harrington's old place 
as assistant secretary of the treasur}^ With 
the intent to make -Mr. Fogg a little happier, 
Mr. Chandler gave him a commission to 



288 Sixty Years in Concord. 

adjudicate the title to a large quantity of 
cotton held in seizure at Ne\A' Orleans by 
the United States government. Tliither Mi*. 
Fogg repaired, and released nine thousand 
six huudred and sixty-five bales of cotton, 
valued at about two million dollars, and 
retained for the government twelve bales to 
which nobody made claim. By this perform- 
ance, for which he received a fee of !i^6,00<) 
for two months' time, and l)y the savings 
from his ministerial salary of r^7,500 in gold 
per annum, Mr. Fogg acquired a comfortable 
property. But the loss of the Swiss mission 
liad embittered him ; and l)ecause Mr. Cliand- 
ler had succeeded Mr. Harrington who had 
succeeded Mr. Fogg, war was declared in 
the Independent De]noer(ft^ not only against 
Mr. Chandler, but against Edward H. Rol- 
lins and N. 0. Ordway, tlien Mr. Cliandler's 
personal and political friends, all three being 
influential members of the Repul)lican part}- 
()f New Hampshire. 

Ml'. Rollins, retiring from congress in 
1837, had in May, 1869, become the secre- 
tiwy of the Union Pacific Railroad. Col. 
Ordway was sergeant-at-arms of the United 
States house of representatives, to which 
office he was elected in 1868, and reelected 
until 1875. 



Personal Recolleetions. 289 

To a man in control of a newspaper, there 
often conies a temptation to use liis pen in 
personal attacks on people with whom he 
happens to differ. Any person who will 
look at the files of the Independent T)einocrat 
or the Concord Daily Monitor (with whicli 
the former paper was nnited in Januar}', 
1867) from 1866 to 1870, will find no diffi- 
culty in concluding that during- that period 
the editor of those newspapers took no 
delight in the life and public services of 
either Mr. Chandler, Mr. Rollins, or Mr. 
Ordwa}^ 

In the latter part of 1868 my father's 
health failed, and he decided to relieve him- 
self of newspaper care ; so it was arranged 
for Mr. Rossiter Johnson to become the edi- 
tor of the Statesman on January 1, 1869. 
On that date the paper was enlarged, and a 
larger, faster printing-press added to our 
equipment. Oar edition was carried to a 
figure considerably higher than its average 
had been, while the care and expenses of the 
business were proportionately increased. 
The Statesman then entered upon an "offen- 
sive-defensive " campaign in behalf of Mr. 
Chandler and his friends, and doubtless 
startled some of its supporters by its aggres- 
siveness. Its new editor was not by nature 



290 Sixty Years in Concord. 

an aggressive man — quite the contrary; still 
Kev. Dr. Boiiton, of Concord, and Mr. Lewis 
W. Brewster, of Portsmouth, made formal 
protest against the pugnacious style of our 
paper — a style which was really Mr. Chand- 
ler's. Dr. Bouton's letter was written on 
the sermon paper with which he was himself 
accustomed to wage battle with the enemy of 
all righteousness. 

This was also a day of political tracts, cop- 
ies of which may still be found. Mr. Chand- 
ler wrote some, and Col. Ordway developed 
unsuspected vigor as a pamphleteer, quoting- 
English poetr}^ of the time of Spenser, and 
making use of his knowledge of practical 
politics in New Hampshire and his adver- 
sary's hasty flight from some public station 
in Kansas in the stormy period of 1856. The 
end of all this was what the Statesman sought 
— a period of peace within the party. 

In the winter of 1869-'70 I visited Wash- 
inp-ton with an intent to make final settle- 
ment of m}' military accounts, and as sucii 
affairs with the government consume consid- 
erable time, the sergeant-at-arms was so kind 
as to employ me ad iMerim as a cashier. 
Col. Ordway had originated a banking de- 
partment in his office at the capitol, which 



Personal Recollections. 291 

collected at the treasury the monthly clues of 
congressmen and placed such to their credit, 
subject to withdrawal at their Avill, and at- 
tended to any other financial business which 
might be entrusted to it. This convenient 
cash department had more customers than 
many a country bank. Tlie accounts of 
some congressmen were often overdrawn, 
while others had always satisfactory bal- 
ances to their credit. The books were care- 
fully written and a balance-sheet drawn daily, 
for some impecunious orator might come in 
for money wlien there was none to his credit, 
and that fact being made known to him, a 
call for a statement of account would follow : 
but I never knew the office to be in error. 
Moses Dillon, of Wilmington, Del., who had 
lived in Louisiana and was familiar with 
Southern Avays, was Col. Ordway's book- 
keeper. He was usually very civil to all 
congressmen, but there was a quantity of 
'' befo'-the-wah " chivalry bottled up in the 
little man, and he would have taken the field 
if his fidelity had been questioned. 

It was out of this office of the sergeant-at- 
arms, and out of the position which T held in 
it, that twenty years later Edward Silcott 
bolted to Canada with thirty thousand dol- 
lai-s of money belonging to congressmen, 



292 Sixty Years in Concord. 

which I think the losers held that the United 
States treasury must make good to them. 
Charles H. Cliristian, then a faitliful colored 
attache of the office, is still tliere. 

Among the customers of the office in my 
time was Congressman Stevenson Archer, of 
Maryland, who in 1890 was committed to tlie 
penitentiary of that state for embezzling- 
•f 132,000 from its treasury, of whose con- 
tents he had become the custodian. 

The most cautious men who did business 
with us were Benjamin F. Butler, of Massa- 
chusetts, and Clarkson N. Potter, of New 
York, both of whom invariably affixed their 
names to pay orders far above the line which 
the treasury department provided for signa- 
tures, close to the text of the order, as a pre- 
caution that nothing sliould be prefixed to 
what they had signed. 

Oakes Ames, from Massachusetts (then re- 
garded as a millionaire), seldom left anything 
to his credit worth carrying on our ledger ; 
but being deemed a master of finance, he had 
a class of congressional pupils in that popu- 
lar school, to some of wliom grief came a few 
years later. 

The apartment of the sergeant-at-arms, 
with its hearth strewn with blazing liickory 
logs, was an attractive loitering-place to 



Personal Recollections. 29o 

luaiiy a congressman. The tall figure of 
Luke P. Poland, of Vermont, clad in a 
Websterian suit of blue with gilt buttons 
and a buff vest, was frequently seen. 
Tliomas Fitch of Nevada, — who afterward 
«aid, on the lecture platform in Tremont 
Temple, he liad found that although he 
spoke with the tongues of men and of an- 
gels, and had not Boston, it profited liim 
nothing, — James A. Garfield and Samuel 
Sliellabarger, of Ohio, Samuel S. Cox, for- 
merly of the Zanesville, Ohio, district, then 
of New York, Samuel J. Randall of Penn- 
sylvania, John A. Bingham of Ohio, Henry 
L. Dawes, of Massachusetts, Ebon C. Tnger- 
soll, of Illinois, and many others, could be 
expected to make at least one daily call. 
Those whom I have mentioned were orators, 
and there were interesting dialogues when 
they met around the glowing fire. 

My connection with the sergeant-at-arms 
office gave me access to the floor of represen- 
tatives hall. The best speaking which I hap- 
pened to hear was a brilliant speech by John 
A. Bingham, repelling a charge of personal 
uncharitableness made against him by the 
*' Tall Sycamore of the Wabash," D. W. Voor- 
hees, of Indiana, because Judo-e Bino-ham did 
not favor the creation of a Xinited States mis- 



294 Sixty Years in Concord. 

sionto Rome (not Italy). Joliii Morrissej, the 
ex-pugilist, whose hair was carefully curled, 
and who wore in summer a suit of white 
linen, was almost never in his seat, and ap- 
peared to derive no enjoyment from liis mem- 
hership. Fernando Wood, tall and dignified, 
dressed like a Presbyterian clergyman, was, 
on the contrary, constant in his attendance. 
Samuel J. Randall, once a Whig, longer a 
Democrat, was a restless person, often hurry- 
ing hither and thither in the aisles, serving 
apparently as a party whip. 

The speaker's apartment was next to that 
of the sergeant-at-arms, and Speaker Blaine 
was an example of promptness. Exactly five 
minutes before a session should begin he was 
at his room, and crossing the corridor pre- 
cisely as the clock marked the hour, he stood 
in his place, the gavel fell, and the silver 
mace was elevated to its marble pedestal at 
Ids risfht. There this emblem of author! tv 
was placed during session hours, but when 
the house went into committee of the wliole, 
it was removed to a lower perch. This use 
of the mace came to us with English parlia- 
mentary traditions. Every school-boy remem- 
bers in his English history, Oliver Crom- 
well's order in 1653 to '' Take away that bau- 
ble ! " Our speaker's bauble was an artistic 



Personal Recollections. 295 

thing, a truncheon of small rods bound to- 
gether with clasps, surmounted by a globe 
on which the hemispheres were engraven, 
and over all stood an eagle with outstretched 
wings, the metal being solid silver. This 
mace has been the topic of a readable maga- 
zine article. 

The capitol itself is most interesting. Dur- 
ing the war I liad seen its dome lifted to 
completion, as if disunion were an impossi- 
ble thing, and watched Crawford's figure of 
America as it went slowly into place to 
crown the whole. Then it Iiad been a satis- 
faction to view the halls, staircases, bronzes, 
marbles, paintings, and carvings. Now I liad 
opportunity to explore the great building 
intimately. Access was had to the library, 
wliose custodian, Mr. A. R. Spofford, was 
a New Hampshire man b}^ birth, also to the 
marble baths, and any of the committee 
rooms, among the latter that of the house 
committee on military affairs, decorated with 
a series of scenes in Indian life painted by 
Col. Seth Eastman, U. S. A., formerly a Con- 
cord man. 

There was in the basement of the capitol 
a place which newspapers named " the Bas- 
tile," — not exactly a dungeon, but a strong 
room, where recalcitrant witnesses had some- 



296 Sixty Years in Concord. 

times been confined. It had grated windows, 
no direct sunlight, and woukl not be re- 
garded as a pleasant habitation. This apart- 
ment was controlled by the sergeant-at-arms, 
and there Mr. John W. LeBarnes, an assist- 
ant of Col. Ordway's, and myself, arranged 
some involved accounts (wanted in a hurry) 
relating to mileage, costs, and witness fees 
of a certain congressional committee of in- 
vestio-ation at New Orleans. LeBarnes was 
familiar with the place for he liad volunta- 
rily lodged there. We toiled all the after- 
noon and three quarters of the night, and 
when I trudged sleepily to my lodgings at 
the corner of West Tenth and North E 
streets, I was unable to get in, and took 
refuge from a storm in the doorway of Ford's 
theatre (within which Abraham Lincoln was 
assassinated on Good Friday, 1865), and 
there in gloomj^ seclusion waited wearily for 
the morning. 

During this sojourn in Washington, which 
lasted away down into summer, I came to 
know many people about the capitol, — news- 
paper correspondents and clerks of commit- 
tees, men of as much information and ability 
as the average congressman. Among such 
were E. V. Smalley of tlie Neiv York Tribune^ 
Sidney Andrews of the Boston Advertiser^ 



Personal Recollections. 297 

U. H. Painter of the Philadelphia Inquir- 
er., George A. Bassett, clerk of the house 
committee on ways and means, and Robert 
J. Stevens, clerk of the committee on a23pro- 
priations. George Bassett was, I tliink, a 
brother of Isaac Bassett, the tall doorkeeper 
of the senate, who has been seen in that place 
almost from time immemorial, and I am sure 
he was of Wesley W. Bassett, who was in 
186'3-'4 a paymaster in the navy. They 
seemed to belong to a family with a talent 
for holding office. 

In Washington, in the winter of 1868-'4, 
1 had dwelt on First street East, a site now 
within the capitol grounds, at a house man- 
aged by a woman with two daughters. 
Among the guests were the Paymaster Bas- 
sett above referred to, and his wife, a lively 
secessionist from Maryland ; Hon. Edward 
McPherson, clerk of the house of representa- 
tives ; Capt. Homer C. Blake, of the navy, 
who commanded tlie little gunboat '' Hat- 
teras " when she was sunk by the " Ala- 
bama " in the Gulf of Mexico, and his fam- 
ily ; Frederick A. Aiken, a lawyer who 
afterward appeared in the defence of Mrs. 
Surratt, when that woman was tried for 
complicity in the assassination of Abraham 
Lincoln, and his wife ; two or three young 



298 Sixty Years in Concoi^d, 

army officers, and one or two not very distin- 
guished congressmen. This was a pleasant 
household, and although it was observed that 
the landlady seldom went out, and there 
were some peculiar incidents in the domestic 
circle, these circumstances caused no especial 
comment. When I gained the acquaintance 
of George Bassett in 1870, and told him of 
my friendship with his brother in 1864, he 
inquired if I knew who the landlady of the 
house on First street really was. He said she 
was the Mrs. Cunningham in whose house, on 
Bond street. New York, Dr. Harvey Burdell 
was murdered in 1856, she being implicated 
as a principal or accessory to that crime ; 
that she and her daughters had gone to San 
Francisco after the war, and were identified 
there as the Mrs. and Misses Cunningham. 
This is, I suppose, a somewhat doubtful 
story, but as proof I was shown some pho- 
tographs which were rather convincing. 

Nothing but time and patience was re- 
quired to close my army accounts. The to- 
tal sum which had been entrusted to me was 
11,720,922.44, about equal to the total gold 
product of California in 1848. A few vouch- 
ers which were deficient in technicalities 
were perfected by filing the retained dupli- 



Personal Recollections. 299 

cates in which there were no defects. One 
voucher was withdrawn to be filed in an- 
other bui-eau, and as a result of the whole 
settlement a small sum of money, 1223.77, 
came to me. This was deemed a fortunate 
ending to a service which some of the older 
paymasters said, in 1862, would, by reason of 
errors and teclmicalities, involve tlie whole 
corps in pecuniary ruin. 

The paymaster-general, in a report dated 
Oct. 31, 1865, speaking of the services which 
his staff rendered in the later months of the 
war, used the following words : 

¥mm the early days of June to the present 
time, this department has made final payment 
to more than eight hundred thousand officers 
and men. This is an important exhibit of 
work, performed chiefly within tlie months of 
June, July, and August— two hundred and 
seventy millions of money paid to eiglit hun- 
dred thousand men. When the manner of 
these payments is observed, with a knowl- 
edge of the particularity required in each 
case, each to be computed in its several items 
of pay, clotliing, bountj^ etc., such stoppages 
as may be chargeable deducted, the final 
amount stated, and the signature of each 
officer and man appended ni duplicate to 
the receipt rolls, some idea may be formed of 
the stupendous labor involved. This work, 
in its innnensity as to men and monev, and 



300 Sixty Years in Concord. 

the small limit of time in which it has been 
performed, has, it is believed, no parallel in 
the history of armies. For this result the 
country is indebted to the zeal, intelligence, 
and sleepless industry of a corps of experi- 
enced paymasters, who signalized themselves 
in this closing act of their military staff ser- 
vice by tlie faithfulness and devotion to duty 
Avhich reflect the highest honor upon them. 

During the War of the Rebellion the cost 
of our pay department, including losses by 
capture and by accident, defalcations (^541,- 
000), salaries and expenses of paymasters 
and clerks, was less than three fourths of 
one per cent, of the total disbursements. 
In the War of 1812 the expenses and defal- 
cations were over seven per cent., — so I 
have somewhere read. The "good old days" 
appear to have been not so good as our own. 



XV. 

My relations with the Statemnan news- 
paper were changed in 1871. Hon. Edward 
H. Rollins had become treasurer as well as 
secretary of the Union Pacific Railroad, and 
offered me the place of cashier in that com- 
pany's Boston office. My connection with 
that corporation began on May 9, 1871, and 
ended almost seventeen years later, when 
healtli failed and I became incapable of fur- 
ther service. 

There had been great scandals connected 
with the construction of that railroad, whicli 
were supposed to have been forever buried 
before I went into its employment, but they 
came unexpectedly, time after time, to the 
surface, in congress, in law courts, and else- 
where, — like lumps of ice in a surging 
stream. To recite the facts concerning those 
scandals (Credit Mobilier, Ames contract, 
alleged briberies, Pennsylvania tax suit, two 
million dollar note, etc.) might enliven these 
pages, and show with what a lavish hand the 
mone}^ and securities of the company were 
dealt out in the early days of the old regime, 



802 Sixty Years in Concord. 

but such recital can be deferred. Nowhere 
ill this narrative have I undertaken to tell 
everything that I know. Curious readers 
may find most of the details of the inglo- 
rious story told in the reports of the Wilson 
and tlie Poland Investigating committees of 
Congress, printed in 1878. It may be need- 
less for me to say that Mr. Rollins was not a 
Credit Mobilier man, but it is a pleasure to 
say so. 

When I took up service with the Union 
Pacific company, two years after it had been 
driven out of New York City, because of a 
raid of pettifoggers and sheriffs made at the 
instance of James Fisk, Jr., it had two small 
rooms on the fourth floor in Sears building 
in Boston for the office of its treasurer, and 
two others a little way off on the same floor, 
set apart for Mr. John Duff, the vice-presi- 
dent. One of the first disturbing facts which 
came to my notice was, that my predecessor 
as cashier sued to recover a moderate allow- 
ance for overwork and special services, and 
it was curious to see the resident directors 
going solemnly into court with piles of com- 
pany books and papers to resist the claim. 
The verdict was against them for f 2,267. 

The credit of the company was not then 



Personal Recollections. 303 

very high. It had been impaired by loose 
management, by an incorrect ruling of Secre- 
tary Boutwell of the United States treasury 
as to certain bond interests, and by sympathy 
with the monetary suspension of Oakes 
Ames and Oliver Ames & Sons, who had 
been and still were interested in its construc- 
tion and management. It had been com- 
pelled to seek alliances, and was friendly 
with the Pennsylvania Central Railroad 
X:)eople. Thomas A. Scott was president, 
and came occasionall}^ to Boston to preside 
at quarterly meetings. He was a handsome 
man and kept a bottle of cologne or Florida 
water on. the directors' table within his reach. 
John Duff, as I have said, was the vice-presi- 
dent. Unlearned in books he had a Scots- 
man's shrewdness, and owned fine pictures 
in which he took delight. His was a grand, 
impressive face, well set off by thick white 
hair. He had built railroads in the West, 
but did not like to do anything on paper. 
Most of the time he was in New York, where 
he had a desk in a Nassau street bankino- 
house, and no irksome responsibilities came 
to him. 

The floating debt of the companj^ was 
troublesome then, as it almost always was, 
for it cost seven per cent., and a commission 



804 Sixty Years in Concord. 

or discount equal to another seven per cent, 
per annum, to carr}^ it, even with bonds of 
the corporation pledged as collatend. Jay 
Gould, when he came into the directory, 
obtained for the company better rates tlian 
these. 

Under such circumstances there were trials 
in the path of the treasurer, but there was 
hope of brighter days. The net earnings of 
the company had not been sufficient to pay 
its interest charges. The four or five clerks 
who in 1871 attended to affairs in • Boston 
often doubted whether their sahiries were 
safe for any considerable time. The mone- 
tary condition is well shown by the fact that 
the last of the land grant bonds, (hited in 
1869, had been sold and were in process of 
delivery to some New York bankers at sev- 
enty per cent, of their par value, or fTOO for 
a ?fl,000 bond. After paying interest on 
these seven per cent, bonds with the utmost 
regularity for years, they were most of them 
redeemed before maturity, some of them at 
the rate of $1,120 for a bond sold at $700. 
Another syndicate of bankers bought at 
eighty per cent, of their par value 12,500,000 
of Omaha Bridge bonds, which bore eight 
per cent, interest, and had twenty-five years 
to run. 



Personal Recollections. 305 

The Pennsylvania Central alliance lasted 
only a year, and ended on March 6, 1872, 
wlien some New York Central people took 
up the road, and Horace F. Clark, a son-in- 
law of tlie first Cornelius Vanderbilt, became 
the president. Mr. Clark had been a mem- 
ber of congress, was a lawyer, and an invet- 
erate talker. At the first meeting of the 
directors after he came into the company he 
gave liis tongue no rest. Ezra H. Baker, a 
veteran Cape Cod sailor, who sat at that 
meeting, remarked when the monologue was 
over, '' What a president we have got ! " Mr. 
Clark took more personal interest in the com- 
pany than did his predecessor. He upset 
some of the black-mailers who liad tlieir head- 
quarters in Wasliington. He had a hatred 
of free passes tliat amounted to a monomania, 
and applicants for favors of that description 
met a hot reception. Mr. T. E. Sickels, then 
our general superintendent, was an amused 
witness of the retreat of a clergyman, amid a 
storm of adjectives, biWical and otherwise, 
from the bed-chamber of the president, to 
which refuge the preacher had made his way 
to ask for free transportion. Mi\ Clark had 
tlien fallen into a chronic nervousness, which 
lasted until his death in 1873. Under his 
management affairs had begun to improve. 

20 



306 Sixty Years in Concord. 

In Marcli, 1874, Mr. Jay Gould, having 
invested lieavily in the company, went into 
the direction with two or three of his New 
York friends. Mr. Sidne}^ Dillon became 
president, and Mr. Gould strove to bring the 
company into the good opinion of investors. 
Just before he became a director, a Union 
Pacific share was worth in Wall street about 
tliirty-two dollars, and when years afterw^nrd 
he sold out it was worth about one hundred 
and ten dollars. Tlius one hundred and fifty 
thousand shares, his holding, Avould show a 
profit of #11,700,000. 

There was a long period during which the 
treasurer had a daily letter from Jay Gould. 
Mr. Gould had no amanuensis. He wrote 
rapidly on light blue paper with dark blue 
ink, and his missives came to be known as 
"blue jaj^s." He kept no copies of those let- 
ters. 

In 1875, rates of fare and freight being- 
undisturbed by competition, the company's 
earnings enabled it to make dividends, and it 
paid the following : In 1875, three and a half 
per cent. ; in 1876, eight ; in 1877, eiglit; in 
1878, five and a half; in 1879, six; in 1880, 
six; in 1881, six and three quarters; in 1882, 
seven ; in 1883, seven ; in 1884, three and a 
half, — making, in all, sixty-one and a quarter 



Personal Recollections. 307 

per cent. Events have proved that it would 
have been wiser to have applied those divi- 
dends toward extinction of tlie government 
loan. 

It was about 1875 tliat tlie companj^'s Bos- 
ton office was moved from tlie Sears building 
to the Equitable, then just constructed. 

Mr, Dillon retired from the presidency in 
1884, and returned to it again in 18i)0, Mr. 
Charles Francis Adams serving between 
those dates. Mr. Dillon was naturally impa- 
tient of restraint, and not over fond of '' lit- 
erary fellers." When Isaac H. Bromley, of 
Hartford, Conn., a very bright newspaper 
man, was appointed a government director 
under the Ha3'es administration, he called on 
Mr. Dillon officially, and was told that gov- 
ernment directors were '' nothing but a myth 
anyway." Mr. Bromley at once made some 
inquiries of the secretary to ascertain just 
when he and his associates were " relegated 
to the domain of mythology," and Mr. Dillon 
shortly afterward revised his opinion of their 
materiality. Under President Adams Mr. 
Bromley became an assistant to the president. 

In 1877, Hon. E. H. Rollins, having been 
chosen a United States senator from New 
Hampshire, vacated his position with the 
company. There were many applications for 



808 Sixty Years in Concord. 

the place (none from myself), but I was 
elected secretary and treasurer in March of 
the last named year. It would be useless to 
relate the history of the office from that date 
until my retirement in 1888, eleven years 
later. The work was often difficult, always 
confining. I never saw tlie road itself until 
1887. Sometimes the company was in favor 
in the stock market, at other times in dis- 
favor. Some of the cliief directors died, and 
others came in by hereditary succession. 
Branch lines were constructed, more and 
more bonds issued, floating debts cleared 
off at one time were renewed at anotlier, and 
there was a gradual increase of responsibility. 
I received from my predecessor securities of 
various kinds, the face value of which was 
perhaps five million dollars, and left to my 
successor in like property more than eiglity- 
seven millions. Tlie mileage of tlie system 
increased from about one thousand miles to 
nearly fivie thousand. During a long period 
tlie system had the management of Mr. 
Sidney Dillon, who wanted men of railroad 
experience around him ; at another it had 
Mr. Charles Francis Adams, who preferred 
Harvard graduates. Mr. Adams devoted 
himself unreservedly and unselfishly to the 
welfare and betterment of the corporation. 



Personal Recollections. 309 

He was alwa^^s considerate toward his sub- 
ordinates and never ruffled in temper. He 
wrote better Englisli than some of liis prede- 
cessors in the Union Pacific presidential 
chair, as he might well do, being himself the 
descendant of two presidents of the United 
States and the son of a distinguished minister 
to England. 

The senior Charles Francis Adams once 
wrote .a couple of lines Avhich ought to be 
placed alongside of those of John A. Dix, 
hereinbefore mentioned. On Sept. 5, 1863, 
after a long setting forth of injuries done and 
likely to be done to the American people by 
confederate cruisers built and being built by 
Englishmen, he said in a letter to Earl Rus- 
sell, her Majesty's Secretary for Foreign 
Affairs, " It would be superfluous for me to 
point out to your Lordship that this is war." 
After those words were written no more 
rebel ships sailed out of English liarbors. 

After reading "Three Episodes of Massa- 
chusetts Historj^" I ventured to remark to 
the younger Charles Francis Adams that it 
seemed a pity that a man who could write 
such interesting books had given so much 
time to the management of railroads. 

In 1879 the Kansas Pacific, with six hun- 
dred and forty-three miles and the Denver 



310 Sixty Years in Concord. 

Pacific, with one liundrecl and six miles, 
were brought into the Union Pacific S3'Steni. 
One hundred tliousand shares in the first 
named company, and forty thousand sliares 
in the second, had been selling at low prices, 
perhaps ^30 a share in the market, but by 
this consolidation were made equal to the 
shares of the Union Pacific company tlien 
selling above their par value on the stock ex- 
change. Any person with a pencil can fig- 
ure out the pi'ofits to the holders of those 
shares. Whatever the stock ledgers of that 
time may show, I think none of the then 
directors of the Union Pacific company was 
caught among the " shorts." 

My connection with the Union Pacific was 
fortunate for myself in not much beside hon- 
orable experience. Beginning as cashier in 
1871, and taking up the duties of secretary 
and treasurer in 1877, other cares came to 
me, — a vice-presidency in 1885, and a rather 
responsible trusteeship in the same year. 
These and lighter positions in forty subordi- 
nate or branch companies came gradually in 
my way, until, in April, 1888, I was taken 
from them all, upset by an injury which, if 
previous circumstances liad l)een more kind, 
might have done me no lasting harm. 



Personal lie collections. oil 

Between the years 1877 and 1888, the com- 
pany, by devolving on me dnties which had 
been performed by others, affected a direct 
saving in saLiries of one hundred and twelve 
thousand two hundred and fifty doUars, — a 
sum wliich a receiver or member of a reorgan- 
izing committee would regard as moderate 
compensation and consolation for a year or 
two of personal service. 

The. receipts and disbursements during my 
seventeen years with tlie Union Pacific treas- 
ury amounted to 1247,815,531.49 ; there were 
also issues of bonds, and a handling and re- 
handlinsf of such securities as collateral for 
loans and otherwise, to a vast amount, all 
without error. It is probable that T should 
have been held accountablefor any accidental 
or other loss in the ofiice, but there was none. 
My salary afforded me a surplus over ex- 
penses in seventeen years of rather more 
than seventeen thousand doUars, about half 
as much as one of our hereditary directors 
squeezed out of the company as boot in an 
exchano-e of two varieties of Kansas Pacific 
bonds one day in September, 1880, — a fulfil- 
ment of an unvv^ary agreement (which the 
treasurer did not make) but, fortunately, 
after 1873, my income from investments 
exceeded my earnings. 



312 Sixty Years in Concord. 

Not many men whom the world calls in 
any degree famous had occasion to visit the 
Union Pacific office in Boston. I remember 
seeing as callers in the ordinary business way 
James G. Blaine, William D. Howells, Sir 
John Rose, Samuel F. Smith, author of '' My 
country, 't is of thee," George F. Hoar, 
Henry Wilson, and Ilenry Cabot Lodge ; 
Henry Ward Beecher once just looked in- 
side the door. William M. Evarts came in 
on one occasion with Sidney Bartlett, the 
last named being the company's counsel and 
the most interesting gentleman wliom I knew 
in Boston, — in the practice of law up to near 
the age of ninety years. Gen. E. T. Alexan- 
der, who was chief of artillery in Lee's army 
at Gettysburg, was for a time one of our gov- 
ernment directors. He told me that if the 
rebels had been pursued vigorously just after 
that battle their army could have been de- 
stroyed. James F. Wilson, of Iowa, and 
Marcus A. Hanna, of Ohio, were at different 
times among the government directors. 
Levi P. Morton was some time a company 
director: so were Andrew Carnegie, of 
Pennsylvania, and Cornelius S. Bushnell, of 
New Haven, Conn. Bushnell was a big, 
bold personage, breezy in his manners — no 
man more so. He was the builder of the 



Personal Recollections. 313 

original " Monitor," and when that strange 
vessel fouglit the " Merrimack " in Hampton 
Roads, she was actually the property of Mr. 
Bushnell and John A. Griswold, of Troy, 
N. Y., for she had not then been accepted by 
the government. Months before that event 
it was Mr. Bushnell's bold advocacy of Eric- 
sson's plans that prevailed with President 
Lincoln, and afterward with the navy de- 
partment, so that the construction of the 
" cheese-box on a raft " was undertaken. 

Among other widely-known men of finance 
not hereinbefore mentioned who in later times 
(1875-1887) held directorship in the com- 
pany were Russell Sage, James R. Keene, 
David Dows, Augustus Schell, George M. 
Pullman, George G. Haven, Colgate Hoyt, 
and James H. Banker. Joseph Richardson, 
the builder of the '' Spite House" in New York, 
was another. He was so careless in his dress 
and appearance that once when he came, at an 
unusually early hour, to attend a directors' 
meeting at the Boston office, the young man 
in charge of the premises, mistaking him for 
an idle loafer, ordered him to clear out, at 
which Richardson was greatly amused, and 
he was afterward fond of telling about the 
circumstance. 

There are people who think that all the 



314 Sixty Years in Concord. 

officers of a great corporation may, by the 
help of superior information, invariably make 
a great deal of money buying and selling its 
securities in the stock market. AVithout un- 
dertaking to speak for anybody else, I am 
quite sure that no other set of people suf- 
fered so much by the decline in value of 
Union Pacific shares, which began about 
1884, as did the Union Pacific directors 
themselves. Samuel J. Tilden, too, although 
not a director, was then a large shareholder, 
and was represented in the board by Andrew 
J. Green, who had been controller of the 
city of New York, and was skilled in finan- 
cial affairs. Mr. Tilden was himself ac- 
counted a pretty shrewd man, but I do not 
see how he can have lost less than half a 
million dollars, for he had ten thousand 
shares, which cost him a round million. 

One day there came to our office a young- 
lady seeking a situation as a shorthand writer. 
She was accompanied by her father. Both 
were dressed like people of a by-gone period, 
and looked exactly as if they had just stepped 
out of a gallery of portraits by Gainsborough 
and Romney. She was allowed to make 
trial of her skill in taking down some sen- 
tences of speech, and scored a failure. Be- 



Personal .Recollections. 315 

ing told as gently as possible tliat our work 
was probably too difficult for Iier until she 
should have had further instruction and 
practice, her father arose, and in the grand 
manner put liis daugliter's arm under his 
own, said sometliing about his roof being 
glad to give her shelter, and they both re- 
tired in a stately way, as if the wliole affair 
had been a scene in a comedy. It would 
have been exceedingly funny, if I had been 
sure it was not pathetic. 

There was ojice in tlie Equitable building 
a remarkable escape from death. For a time 
a restaurant was kept on the loftiest floor, 
where the windows commanded a line view 
of the harbor and in summer the air was 
cool. A young lady and gentleman, with a 
child, came there to dine. In tlie upper hall- 
way the little one escaped their care for a 
moment, and ran through the balusters of 
the stair-rail, which were set wide apart. 
This was on tlie eighth or ninth floor, and 
there was a slieer drop in the stair-well to a 
marble pavement about one hundred and 
twenty feet below% A startling shriek went 
through the building when tlie motlier saw 
what had happened. If the child's guardian 
angel was off duty for an instant, she got 
back in time. The little one went off tlie 



316 Sixty Yearns in Concord. 

floor with forward impetus sufficient to carry 
it across the stair-well when it had fallen 
three flights, and then it struck so nicely 
balanced on the sloping stair-rail that the in- 
clination of the rail slid it in on to the stairs, 
where a girl who was washing the steps 
caught it up, apparently not much hurt. 

The richest men whom I have known were 
not the most contented. One day an indi- 
vidual, possessor of many millions of prop- 
erty, so anxious for an increase that he after- 
ward left Boston, where all his wealth had 
been acquired, and went to a distant city, 
where he could escape taxation on personal 
estate, came to the Union Pacific office with 
an eager face, called out one of the directors, 
and besought to be put in the way of making 
a little money. When he had gone, the gen- 
tleman with whom he had been speaking said, 
" Of all tlie fools in the world, the biggest 
are retired Boston merchants." He had him- 
self been a Boston importer of East India 
goods. 

It is quite true that some people were con- 
tinually fooling our resident directors. One 
such scarcely ever came to Boston without 
fleecing them. He induced them in 1876 
to pat a million dollars into a Jersey City 



Personal Recollections. 317 

oil refinery which the Standard Oil Conii^any 
raked in at one handful. Another very com- 
mon fellow from tlie West woi-ked several 
schemes. He was in politics, mining, and 
other transactions. In Api-il, 1 877, represent- 
ing that he wns to cut a big figure in public 
life, get elected governor of his state, buy a 
newspaper, and be a great and good friend 
to the Union Pacific Company, tlie directors 
gave him a moderate fortune out of our treas- 
ury, namely, f 86,000 in the bonds of a certain 
Western county ; but it all amounted to noth- 
ing. This did not deter tliem from buying of 
him later four hundred bonds and some stock 
in a mining and tunnel company which were 
o^f not mucli account. The worthless Nevada 
Central Railway was also foisted on to them, 
or rather on to the company, in some curious 
way; but when Alexander Graham Bell of- 
fered them as individuals oi-iginal stock in 
his telephone patent, they witnessed his ex- 
periments, and declared the invention to be a 
very interesting thing, but without commer- 
cial value. 

Some accomplished liars visited our cash 
room— brakemen detained in tlie East until 
their money was gone; clerks who had 
smoothed a mother's dying pillow and spent 



318 Sixty Years in Concord. 

their last cent ; farmers returning from the 
old country and landed accidentally in Bos- 
ton instead of New York ; women who had 
pursued eloping sisters to the edge of the 
ocean — all wanted moneyed help back to the 
Union Pacific country, and all proved to be 
arrant rogues. 

The State Street people transacted their 
affairs with our ofiice, and entrusted it with 
their property, in a confident and most grat- 
ifying wa}^ It seems a curious happening, 
but when I had left the office on the evening 
of April 4, 1888, little suspecting it to be for 
the last time, on the way to the railroad sta- 
tion I was overtaken by a Devonshire Street 
banker, who said, in casual conversation, " I 
have had a great amount of business with 
your office, and it has all been done right." 
Tliis was an agreeable incident to reflect 
upon in tlie weary months of disability that 
followed. I had held the place longer than 
any other occupant of it. 

These Recollections do not connect them- 
selves closely with Concord after the year 
1871. The writing them has given me a 
winter's occupation and amusement. They 
may have little worth ; but if years hence a 



Personal Recollect 



ions. 



319 



copy shall remain on some neglected book- 
shelf, I hope it will have gained local value 
and some flavor imparted by antiquity, like a 
cask of vin ordinaire long forgotten in some 
cool cellar. 

Summing up now the sixty years : These 
experiences with fishermen, printers, soldiers, 
Union Pacific millionaires, and all sorts of 
people, bid me say that tlie conclusion to 
which" I am brought is, that of all personal 
possessions Christian character is the best. 

Concord, July 10, 1891. 








INDEX. 



Abbott, Joseph C 221 

Joshua 43 

Abbot, J. Stephens 84 

A Baffled Fraud 219 

A Boy's Library 81 

Adams, Charles Francis 308, 309 

A Daj' in the Army 261 

A Hard. Payment 272 

Alexander, E. T 312 

Ainsworth, Calvin 114 

Allston, Washington 126 

American Art Union 117 

Ames, Oakes 303 

Oliver 303 

Amusements in 1840 68 

An Army Dinner 250 

Anderson, John 41 

A Night in an Ambulance 255 

Annuities of a Frenchman 185 

Anticosti 166 

A Tough Hen 208 

Auroral Display 209 

Avery, Nancy 11 

Badger, Benjamin E 55,59 

Charles A 180 

Stephen C 23 

Barr, Franlj 98 

Barrett, Charles F 116, 139 

Bartlett, Samuel C. ]81 

Sidney 312 

Barton, Cyrus 51 

Bay of Islands 154 

Beginning of the Rebellion 223 

Berry, Nathaniel S. 228, 256 

Bingham, John A 293 

Birds in Labrador 164 

Bishop, Anna 126 



322 huhx. 

Bixby, Phin P. , . 222 

Blaine, James G 294,312 

Blowing a Church Organ 102 

Boating and Rafting 72 

Bombardment of Fort Sumter 227 

Bonne Esperance Bay 147 

Borough Riflemen 75 

** Boston John " 204 

Botts, John Minor 269 

Bouton, Rev. Nathaniel 8, 33, 290 

N. S 181 

Bradley, Richard 90 

Brewster, Lewis W. 290 

Briggs, John C 172, 211 

Bromley, Isaac H 307 

Buck, William D 22 

Brown, Clara A 62 

John F 109 

Walter 56 

Bull, Ole 126 

Bull Run Battle 238 

Burke, Edmund 239 

Burlesque Tickets 93 

Burnham, Rev. Abraham 54,63 

C. G 62 

Burleigh, Henry G 43 

Bushnell, C. S 312 

Buying into the Statesman 187 

Canadian Mails 136, 143 

Candidate for Shorthand Writing 314 

Canterbury Shakers 97 

Capture of a Black Eagle 209 

Careful Printing . • 212 

parnegie, Andrew 312 

Carter, Abiel 69 

Edward P 44 

Mrs. Ezra 49 

John W. D 69 

Nathaniel H 54, 99 

Catechism Class 51 

Chadbourne, Andrew 76 

Mrs. Thomas 49 

William 42, 61, 82 

Chadwick, Edmund S 98, 109 



Index. 323 

Chandler, Geo. H 55 

Timothy E. 180 

William E 55, 287 

John 55 

John B. 21 

Changes by Fire 39 

Chase, Samuel G 115 

Chesbrough, E. S 38 

Chicago in 1857 181 

Chichester Gin 33 

Chickering, Elliot 131 

Chocorua Mountain 207 

Church, Maria 21 

Clark, Charles 243 

Horace F 305 

Peter 122, 128 

Olough, Elijah 98 

George 39, 66, 134 

Moses H 54 

O. A 145 

Coasting 75 

Coffin, Samuel 84, 90 

Colby, George J. L 99 

Columbian Artillery 75, 201 

Columbian Hotel 200 

Concord Boating Company 122 

Concord Gazette 214 

Concord in 1840 27 

Concord Light Infantry 75 

Concord Literary Institution -57, 123 

Concord Lyceum 126 

Concord Railroad 12i 

Concord Railroad Construction 37 

Concord Railroad Opening 39 

Concord's State-house Expenditure .... 284 

Contraband Negro . . 263 

Crawford, Ethan 107 

Crossman, Leonard 39 

*' Copperhead " Convention in Concord .... 253 

Cummings, E.E 33,228 

Dana, Napoleon J. T 56 

Davis, Phineas ........ 130, 136 

Robert 90 

Wm. S 243 



824 Index. 

Day, Aaron 58 

Democratic Standard 239 

Departure of First Regiment 232 

De Trobriand, Regis 254, 261 

Dillon, Sidney 306. 307 

Distinguished Visitors to Concord 5, 211 

Dix, John A 226 

Dole, William 84, 134 

Douglas, Stephen A 212, 225 

Mrs. S. A 212 

Downing, Lewis 84 

Dress in the Army 268 

Drew, George W 169 

Dudley, Peter 200 

Duff, John 302,313 

Dumas, S.H 84 

Duties of an Army Paymaster 246 

Eagle Coffee House 84 

Early Foreigners 40 

Early Schoolmates 44, 55 

Eastman, Edson C. 55 

Samuel C 169 

Eagan, Thomas W 263,274 

Ela, Jacob H 99 

Eleventh Regiment 201 

Elliott, Charles I. 145 

JohnH. ; 131 

Emerson, Ralph Waldo 127 

Epps, Charles L 181 

Escape from Death 315 

Fast Trains to Boston 137 

Fifth Regiment 234 

First New Hampshire Batterj' 270 

Fish in Merrimack River 71 

Fisk, James, Jr 302 

Flagg, Daniel 67 

Flanders, Cyrus W 228 

Fogg, George G 215, 223, 287 

Foster, Charles H 55 

Ira 133 

Stephen S 22 

William L 228 

Fowler, Asa . • • 28, 81, 114, 224 



Index. 325 

Fourth of July Celebrations 52 

Fourth of July Riots 36 

Fractional Currency 220 

Franklin Bookstore 109 

French, Theodore 71 

Fuller, Elizabeth 63 

Henry W SS 

Melville W 176,182 

Gage, Nathaniel E 44 

William L 44 

Gallinger, Jacob H. • • • 221 

Gault, George W 44, 45, 70, 77, S2. 120, 123 

JohnC 131 

William 15 

•' General Stark " Engine 137 

Gentlemen of the North End ...... 82 

George, Sam 167 

Gilmore, Andrew J. 98 

Henry H 55 

Joseph A 71, 84. 143, 252 

Gould, Charles F 180 

Jay 304, 306 

Solon 196 

Gove, Jesse A 114 

Governor's Horse Guards 94, 282 

Green, Benjamin 93 

Grecian Hall 84 

Grant, Ulysses S 235 

Ulysses S., his arrival in Washington . . .236 

Hadley, Amos 214 

Ham, Charles H 145, 176, 184 

Harper's Magazine 117 

Harriman, Walter 171 

Hatch, William H 33 

Haynes, Martin A 222 

Timothy 97 

Head, Natt 63 

Herbert, Samuel 17, 27 

Hill, Lsaac 90,112,217 

Holt, Abel B 84 

Hoit, " Old Veteran " William 35, 98 

Holmes, Oliver Wendell 127 

Hopkins, Seth 39, 134, 137 

William H 135. 142 



826 



Index. 



Houseful of Money 279 

Houston, Gen. Sam 69 

Hunt, Israel 202 

Hutehins, Abel 55 

Benjamin T. 169 

Ephraim 83, 121 

George H 55 

Hamilton 84 

Robert A. . . . 42, 106 

In an Uglj' Hole 204 

Income of a Business Man 25 

Independent Democrat 214 

Ink Rolling " Behind the Press " 109 

Isms, the Day of 21 

Jenks George E 98, 109, 192 

Edward A 98 

Johnson, Rossiter 289 

Kendall, George W 99 

Kendrick, James R 144 

Kent, Charles P 55 

George 99 

John 55 

Kimball, Benjamin A 131, 145 

John 130, 145 

Wm. S 132 

Kiirg, Thomas Starr 127 

Kneeland, Bartholomew 7 

Elizabeth 7 

Susanna Sewall 7 

Labrador Fisheries 150, 161 

Lancaster, Clara . 59 

Landscape Painters of Conway 106 

Lane,Rufus 98,120 

Late Rides on an Engine 141 

Leavitt. Dudley HI 

Leavitt's Almanac HI 

Lincoln, Abraham 203, 223 

Long Pond Water 211 

Lovering, N. P. 131 

Low, Charles F 214 

J. Hamilton 55 

Joseph 28, 90, 92, 122, 123 

William 110,217 



Index. 827 

Macaulay's History of England 116 

Machine Shop Pay Rolls 140 

Mackenzie, Alexander Slidell 58 

*' Mameluke " Engine 139 

Marshall, Anson S 228 

McFarland Ancestry H 



Andrew 



120 



9, 



Rev. Asa 

■^^^ • • • • 6, 11, 75. 96, 100. 120. 190. 192, 216. 289 

Homestead 12 

Elizabeth Kneeland - 

Nancy D wight 10 

McMillan, Andrew 104 

Farm ! 104 

Gilbert JO4 

McNeil, Wm. Gibbs 38 

Meredith, R. R • ... 228 

Merrill, Rufus 219 

Merrimack River 70 

Military Accounts, Settlement of ... . 290. 299 

Militia Trainings 75 

Mittanogue Bay I65 

Monej' and Currency . - 82 

Money in the Pocket 280 

Morril, David L 16, 100 

Samuel 45 60 

William H 44 

Morrill, Paul 99 

Morton, Levi P 180 312 

Moulton. James '54 

Murdock, Cyrus M 169 

Names of Engines 142 

Nesmith, George W 54 

New Hampshire Court Reports lOO 

Newspaper Men 99 

New Pool of Siloam 206 

North Conway 103 

Noj-es. Daniel James 22 33 

Odlin. George 98 190 

John j4 

Woodbridge 84,85 

Office of Master of Transportation 143 

Old Fire Hooks ! 51 



328 index. 

Old North Choir 18 

North Church 17 

Pedagogues 54 

Printers 98 

Railroad Men 130 

Ways and Cookery 13 

Ordway, N. G 228, 290 

Owl, The (Newspaper) 36 

Pabst, Frederick 179 

Palmer, Albert 63 

JohnB 242 

Paradise Woods 74 

Parker, Caleb 51 

David 97 

Henry E 228, 239 

Joel 100 

William M 144 

Parodi, Teresa • .... 126 

Patriotic Meeting 228 

Patti, Adalina 126 

Peabody, George 48 

Peaslee, Charles H 114, 122 

Perkins, Hamilton E. . . .' 75 

Pembroke Academy 62 

Perley, Ira 84. 85, 231 

Perry. John T 221 

Peverl.v, James 90 

Phelan, James 40 

Phelps, Henry W 99 

Phoenix Hotel 83 

Pictures of Concord 73 

Pierce, A. C. . 84 

Franklin . . 28.90,92,113,118,127,212.225,228,231 

Pillsbury, Emily 58, 62 

George A 132 

Pluck • 202 

Porter, William T. . . ' 99 

Printers' Ink Rollers 101 

Printing as an Art 100 

Printing Machinery 213 

Pulford,John 262,273 

Queer People 93 

Quimby, Benjamin F 181 



Index. 329 

Railroad Competition 137 

Friends j^^ 

Rankin. James E 55 

Remarkable Newspaper Article 226 

Renton, John gQ 

Dr. Peter 17,36,80 

Christie gQ 

Rice, Harvey " .' 130 jgg 

Roberts, Hall 67 108 

Robinson, Joseph . . . ' 90 

Robj', Luther 3q 

Rolfe, Henry P 212,224,228 

Rollins, Edward H 288, 301, 302, 307 

Salary of Country Minister g 

Salm-Salm, Felix ! 249 

Madame 25o 

Sanborn, B. W. j^g 

Charles P 55 

Edwin D 5^ 

^^^ov?:e G .'.'.' 131,145 

George H 44 

Sargent, James W j32 

Saxe, John G 127 

School of Mary Ann Allison 43^ 50 

Ruby B. Preston ' \y 

Sally Parker . . 41 

School Life at Pembroke g5 

Schooner " Angelia " 152^ 167 

Scene at South Church '22 

Scott, Winfield • . 235 

Seamen's Friend Society g9 

Sea Trout jg2 

Seavey, Shadrach \ 44 

Seward, Wm. H., call on 276 

Sharpshooters 266 

Sherburne, Henry C. ! 144 

^^^^^^ .' 132,143 

Robert 44 

Shooting 

Sickles, Daniel E 250 

Sighting Land jgg 

Skating ' ' „g 

Smart, Charles g^ 

Smith.J. V.C 127 



830 Index. 

Smyth, Frederick 212 

Soldiers Paid in Concord 279, 281 

Some things the Statesman did 210 

Spaulding, Isaac . . • 128 

Stage Coach Fares 122 

Lines 31 

Stanlej-, Solon 83 

Stan wood, Henry P 180 

State Capital Reporter 214 

State House after Adjournment 197 

State House Controversy 284 

Statesman Building 286 

Statesman History 188 

Second Regiment 233 

Steamboating . 177, 186 

Stevens, Josiah 22, 75, 228 

Stewart, Thomas W 169 

Stickney, John 73, 77 

Joseph 169 

Nathan 49, 120 

Miss Susan 49 

Tavern 47 

Sturtevant, Edward E 70 

St. Valentine's Day 116 

Substitute Brokers 220 

Sunday Dress 19 

Surrender of Lee 281 

Swiss Singers 50 

Sykes, M. L 186 

Tappan, Mason W 112, 196, 232 

Tenney, Jonathan 62 

Ten Broeck, Petrus S 33 

The Editor's Desk 218 

The Printing Office 96 

The Troop 75 

Thomas, Rev. Moses G 33 

Thompson, A. B 228 

Benjamin 54 

Thomas W 9 

Todd, George E 144,171 

Torchlight Procession of 1856 172 

Towne. John 54 

Town Elections 90 

Town Hall 91 



Index, 331 

Treadwell, Thomas J 55 

Thomas P 228 

Tripp, Ervin B 98 

Union Pacific Railroad 301 

Disbursements 311 

Dividends 306 

Upham, N. G . .49, 66, 122. 128 

N. L 63 

Vail, S. M. 228 

Virgin, John 93 

Voyage to Labrador 152 

Walker, Gustavus 55 

Joseph B 19, 228 

Ward, Samuel . 185 

Warde. David A 169 

Watson, Philip 125 

Webster, Calvin C 204 

Charles F 139 

Daniel 69, 85, 86, 113. 190 

Welcome Visitors 218 

Wentworth, John 181 

West's Brook 30 

West, Charles H 44 

Weston, James A 130,144,145 

Wheeler, Charles C 178, 179 

Whipple, Edward 44 

Whifctler, George W 38 

White Mountains, foot journey to 107 

White, Nathaniel 200 

Wilson, John C 238 

Woodbury, Levi . - 54, 114 

Wood, George 18 

John T 6a 

Worcester, Rev. Thomas 88 

Wright, Andrew J 180 

Levi P 133, 139 

Wyatt, Joseph G 84,85 



H 99 78 ' 



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